Author: S8

When we first started out exploring, there was little interest in the world of Exploring from the papers, magazines and the media world. Security at most sites would look at you in a perplexed manor when they found you photographing their grotty building. Friends thought we were odd after we explained that we had spent the afternoon in an old mine. In general, people didn’t really give a shit. Only every now and then did a paper pick up some photos from one of the forums and publish a story, leading to a happy pay day for whoever had their photos stolen, but no one actively pursued the gravy train. We seem to recall that there was only one article where a ‘Lads Mag’ approached an explorer to talk to them about climbing cranes and possibly join them at the top of one! But it didn’t go much further than that.

Over the last few years there have been a few enterprising explorers who have managed to cash in on their photographs. The publication of photographs from the top of The Shard the day before it officially opened caused a media storm, with interviews and photographs published in all the National Newspapers and a slot on the BBC News. Someones hard work paid off for them, but other sections of the exploring world didn’t like being thrust into the limelight unexpectedly. Coupled with a few high profile arrest the previous year, the Authorities suddenly took an interest. Red Bull were even interested and published a few photographs and videos on the internet. This is all part of the parcel of the Exploring community and the explosion of the social media generation trying to outdo each other.

But has it come to this (suddenly humming The Streets)? Paying to be taught how to photograph and explore by a high street photographic retailer? Soon we’ll all be lining up outside our local derp to pay for entry and hire of the keys to let us in…! We may as well head down to the local museum.

If you don’t want to stick two fingers up at the social conventions of our time, climb over a fence and see what is on the other side, sign up to the event Here.

We won’t.

#tongueincheek

Once a weekend every year, during September, the country throws open its doors and welcomes passersby into the Countries heritage hidden in plain sight. The following weekend, London does the same thing. It’s like exploring, but a little more civilised and a little less climbing. We try to go every year if we are around as it allows us to see a number of places we would not normally get to see.

Last weekend we made a trip to somewhere we have always meant to visit – but haven’t quite found the time – the Railway HV Control Room at Woking. Sitting astride the Portsmouth Junction at Woking on the South West Trains mainline is a nondescript concrete monolith that must surely be ignored by thousands of commuters a day. Even if they weren’t buried in their copies of the Metro, it is doubtful they would even pay the building much attention. Little do they know at the gem they are missing out on! Hidden inside is a beautiful art-deco control room built in 1936 during the electrification of the Surrey section, and expanded again with the Reading extension a few years later.  The control room was decommissioned in 1997 when a new facility was built in Eastleigh. The building is still in use by Network Rail, they didn’t say what exactly for, but a few enterprising employees managed to get it listed as a Heritage Asset with Network Rail (the York museum apparently wasn’t interested as it isn’t old enough). Thankfully, a rare example of thirties infrastructure is preserved.

Another one of the other places we would never have gotten to see without the Heritage Open Days was the Foxenden Quarry Deep Shelter in Guildford. If you ever happen to find yourself parking in the Quarry Road carpark in Guildford, you are parking next to a piece of World War II history. Finding a way in would be next to impossible, a huge set of steel doors block your way, which themselves are backed by another set of gates. Anyway, leading into the old Quarry workings are a series of tunnels excavated to provide Guildford with Air Raid protection built to house thousands of people. Sadly, Guildford Council have had to shut the tunnels to tours because of Health and Safety…

If you haven’t been, they are a great day out and you get to see some interesting places. Last weekend was the UK wide open days; this weekend (17/09/2016) is the London Open House.  In case you are at a lose of how to spend your weekend, we would highly recommend going. Previously, we have seen the old Rotherhithe Mortuary, the London Guildhall and more.

It happens time and time again, derelict buildings succumb to an act of vandalism, metal theft or the curse of the developers. If you spend any amount of time on any of the numerous urban exploration forums, you will notice a trend. Explorers don’t like it when any of this happens. We feel as though a dog has just crapped right in the middle of our playground. We will be the first to admit that there is a certain sense of sadness when a site we have explored is abused or demolished. There was a certain amount of chagrin afloat when we walked into our local site, West Park, to find a sudden surge in graffiti. Some intrepid people later returned and painted over it all to make a point!

As explorers, we don’t like it when a listed building burns to the ground for unexplained reasons (just about any mill up north), or when a once pristine building is stripped of any of the valuable materials and left exposed to the elements. These acts cause untold amounts of damage and can cause a listed building to be demolished due to economic or structural reasons. There was much sadness when the Cane Hill Admin block burned to the ground as the buildings had represented an iconic explore.

There are however a number of societies that highlight buildings that are at risk and although they have some successes, they are relatively powerless to act. But these things happen. It is part of the make up of Exploring and the wider world. I don’t think anyone ever complained about the absolute derelict state that Hellingly was in – it added to its photogenic charm and the acute sense of awareness that you may crash through the floor unannounced was unparalleled (there was a certain uproar when a small fire was discovered in the main hall though). We have to remember as explorers that the act of either vandals, or metal thieves busting their way into a building normally opens it up to us for exploring. Yes, we may become annoyed that a beautiful architectural feature has been ruined by artfully applied paint, but that feature will more than likely be ruined by the developers club hammer. Over the years that we have spent exploring we have seen many buildings come and go, even some that have clung to life, despite everything thrown at them.

It was sad to here that the Loxley Independent Chapel near to Sheffield burnt down over the weekend. It wasn’t the most exciting of explores, but it is another building in the long list of buildings that have mysteriously burnt to a crisp. Loxley Chapel had been on English Heritage’s (Historic England) At Risk register for the last 30 years, so much good that did. I expect that it’ll be demolished and replaced with a new modern building of little value, or soul.

Oh well, the march of ‘progress’ continues.

Reblogged from the subsection:

For the last 9 years of operating TheTimeChamber has always had a photography section glued to side of it. We haven’t ever done much with it, other than sling up a random selection of photographs that we are pleased with. When we switched  the website over to running on WordPress, we added a few tutorials and musings and got know further. But as the website has grown, along with our photography, we have kind of forgotten about it and left it dormant.

That was until about a year ago when we created photo.thetimechamber.co.uk and started another WordPress site to try and create a photography based section away from our Urban Exploration. We promptly forgot about it and got distracted by other things.  This wasn’t going to well, it it just couldn’t get off the ground. We would rather be outside doing other things, than trying to find that code snippet and compile a selection of photos. In idly browsing the web, we came across a WordPress theme that caught our eye, and after installing it, the photo section was born proper.  Using Portfolios, we can now display all manner of photos in an ordered manner. Old photography related blog posts will be slowly moved across and updated. Eventually, we plan to try and sell a prints few too.

We hope you like it, you can find it at:

photo.thetimechamber.co.uk

Cane Hill. The legend. One of those places we doubt very much that we’ll ever see something of it’s like again, outside of bankrupted small time engineering firms. It had everything you could want, great dereliction, piles of interesting tat and a security that was ruthless and on the ball. Many an explorer spent hours evading, or at least attempting to evade them. When TheTimeChamber first started out 9 years ago (where did the time go?), Cane Hill was almost a right of passage. We made a number of forays through the fence, all filled with bewildered wonderment, a little bit of fear, jam sandwiches and mad scrambles.

After a protracted battle to attempt to have the buildings listed, Cane Hill was demolished nearly six years ago in 2008, with only the Chapel, Water Tower and Administration block being retained. The exploring scene had lost a great location. A small group of people tried in 2006 to persuade English Heritage to list the buildings, as they were unique with its Radial Pavilion layout. The listing was denied siting other better examples of the Echelon plan, which Cane Hill was a forerunner too, and Whittingham being cited as a similar sample that should be preserved. Whittingham was demolished in 2014. Hmmm.

We don’t wish to walk down a path and reminisce for too long as it’ll look like we don’t explore anymore (we do!), but we learnt through a friend on Facebook (cheers mate) that the remaining buildings were accessible. Wondering what to do one evening after work, we decided to head down and have a look. It was slightly strange feeling to step foot into a building where on previous visits it had been quite a tense experience. This time it was rather relaxing and we spent a good few hours messing about in the chapel and wandering the admin building. Even more amusing was to come across the forgotten signature wall, which featured a plethora of old explorers pseudonyms.

We have to admit we should have realised that, being an active construction site, there would be the possibility of security doing the rounds. We hadn’t expected to have to hit the dirt, but we did. After a quiet shuffle through some bushes, and a noisy sprint across some fallen fencing, we slipped away and were home after a spot of post exploring fish and chips. We have to say, even through the chapel stinks of pigeon shit, it is still and amazing building.

After a recent mention on Twitter by a fellow explorer that linked to our Chernobyl pages, we realised that we never told our the full story of our visit. Aside from a few rambling stories in the pub, we have only ever added photos on an interactive map and left it at that. Even when we posted the visit to various forums, we never went into too much detail as to what we remember from our trip. So here goes:

TL;DR: We went to Chernobyl, irradiated ourselves, experienced the Ukraine and some quasi-communism.

Post script: We had written a huge post on our adventure in Chernobyl and the Ukraine, but since we went many other people have done and written about their own similar experiences and we lost motivation for the blog.  The final words we typed were “This is long” and gave up.  You can see all of our photos here: https://www.thetimechamber.co.uk/beta/home/chernobyl-exclusion-zone

Here on TheTimeChamber, we have two obsessions.  Asylums and Cold War Bunkers. We love a good bunker.  They put our imagination right in the heart of a Hollywood blockbuster.  OK, we’ll admit it takes a little to get there as most of the ROTOR Bunkers we have visited are burnt out, flooded wrecks (excluding museums).

After World War 2 the system of Chain Home RADAR was run down as the threat of a new enemy was not recognised at the time.  When the Soviet Union detonated a nuclear weapon in 1949, Britain awoke to the dawn of a new enemy and hastily started constructing and reactivating a comprehensive network of RADAR stations.  The old Chain Home sites were reconditioned and a number of underground bunkers were built on the East coast of England, semi-sunken bunkers on the West coast, to provide accommodation to the main operations centre.  In a true Bond style design, the bunkers were accessed through a Bungalow that concealed a hidden entrance to the underground tunnel leading to the Bunker.  The only other clue that there was anything hidden in the area was an innocuous concrete out house for the emergency exit, where a door, and if it hasn’t been filled in, stairs leading down below. Zoom out from the site a little further and you will see a few extra buildings, and a whooping great RADAR set.  We suspect the Russians new exactly what was there, with it squarely in their gun sights.

Other than visiting ROTOR Bunkers that have been converted to Museums, we had yet to visit one that was not a ruin, excluding the few museums that exist.  Wartling is a ruin, Portland is a burnt out shell, Bempton is gutted.  However, this all changed when we found ourselves standing on the edge of a fenced compound, freezing our tits off, looking over at an old RAF military installation and the North Sea.  The Birth Place of RADAR was calling. Unlike the other bunkers we have snooped around, Bawdsey is different and was functional RAF station up until the end of the Cold War, around the 1990s, and was known to be in good condition (side note: the bunker was shut earlier). Comparatively, others we had visited such as Wartling closed in the mid-sixties and had suffered severe flood damage.

We have mentioned it before, but entering into an underground space normally requires finding, and then squeezing through, a very small gap.  This time was no different. After making our way across a large fenced compound, we stood looking at an impossibly small hole in the ground. Here we go again! Slithering and sliding through, we found ourselves standing at the top of the emergency exit stairs. Now picture Wartling, the same stairs exist, but the cabling has been stripped bare and the walls show signs of years of neglect. Bawdsey was the polar opposite, cables still resided in their hangers, the walls looked clean and the transformer was relatively intact. What a difference. As we moved through the bunker, concrete plinths we expected to be empty contained all manor of equipment, including the telephone exchange and communication gear.

We can remember when Bawdsey first popped up on the on various forums Radar over five years ago. It was dry, untouched and in mint condition. We wanted to go, but life and university got in the way and the chance slipped us by, with the bunker disappearing from view a while ago. Over the last few years it has opened and closed with the tides.  As seems to be the way with a lot of sites, it has started to go down hill. The community likes to say that posting sites across the internet doesn’t have an effect on them, but here on TheTimeChamber, we think it does. We don’t think that Bawdsey would have gone downhill if it wasn’t for the interest in the site by various exploring forums over the last few years. Looking back at past photos, there was no vandal damage and it looked like the land pirates hadn’t visited yet. We are more and more convinced that the more postings a site receives, the more attention it receives from people wanting to make a quick profit. It makes you think if it is worthwhile posting photos online at all, or if sharing it privately is a wiser move.  Food for thought.

Since visiting, we have managed to add a few more to the list – Hope Cove, Neatishead and Kelvedon Hatch have provided us with interesting places to see, all being relatively intact and good walk rounds. But nothing has quite matched stepping foot into an abandoned one that feels as if it could be restarted (after a little bit of work).

We’ll add a proper page soon, with more photos and history.

Open days for the restored Cuckfield ROC Post in West Sussex are now confirmed for 2016!

The restored Cuckfield Royal Observer Corps post in West Sussex is holding more open days this year.

4+5th June
2+3rd July
27+28th August

The bunker is in a small village, it involves a pleasant walk down a small footpath approx 1/2 mile and also involves descending a fixed vertical ladder for around 15 feet.

Location is here, please note there is NO vehicular access to the post
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=51.004 … 1&t=h&z=19

and parking is here in the village, there are some really nice pubs and tea shops.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=51.006 … 1&t=h&z=19

Walk down behind the church, through the church yard and onto the lane that runs a long the bottom edge of the church yard. Follow it along and look for the signs!

For interest, here is the original condition of the post so you can see how we restored it.
https://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/roc/db/98 … 08001.html

For those that have noticed, we have been very silent for most of 2015 and very little exploring happened.  We haven’t meant to neglect the website, photography and exploring, but life took a turn we hadn’t expected.  But, we are back and new updates to the website should be following shortly.

 

We have been busy at work, but as you may have noticed, not on this website.  TheTimeChamber has been part of the team that has resurrected the old County Asylums website.  It was a lot of hard work over the past few years, but it is back!

Below is a copy of their welcome back blog post:

Welcome to county asylums.  If you remember the original site you’ll probably know what the old one was about. Maybe even remember what it looked like. If you don’t then maybe take a second to read the about page.  Here’s the old site, just for nostalgia purposes:

Sadly, the original website and domain name disappeared in early 2012.

The good news is, as you can see, we’re back and even better than before (well, we think so anyway.) – we’ve comprehensively covered all the county asylums and some more on top of that. We know the subject of the asylums can be a sensitive one. We’re not here to glamorise what they were because we know not all of it was good. However we shouldn’t just forget about these buildings because of what went on once built. From a purely architecture point of view these buildings ranked amongst some of the most impressive designs of the time and some of the logic behind the designs was ground breaking.

It’s been a project that started not long after the original site disappeared. 3 years work and we’ve finally made it.  Where as it was just Pete before we’re now a nicely sized team of 4 and we’ve enjoyed working together.

You’ll notice not everything has been finished. There is a history or two still add and some sites will have none or limited internal and external photos.  Obviously there will be locations where it simply will be impossible to obtain many internals (Broadmoor for starters) and others that were simply demolished before the turn of the 20th century (Hull).   However we felt we needed to get the site on-line and share what we’ve accomplished so far.   What we really hope is many of you reading this may have pictures, postcards, memories or interesting information you can contribute to this site.  We’ve already been helped by a great number of people already (you’ll find these names on the about page – thank you to all of you, once again) but if you can help us make this site even better then please drop us an email – info@countyasylums.co.uk

As time goes by we hope to continue to improve the details of the asylums listed and add additional institutions as we can. We’ve plenty of avenues, not least starting with the Scottish asylums.  So thanks for visiting and please keep an eye on the blog as we’ll post updates/interesting news as we go.

Thanks,

The County Asylum Team.

Every now and then, eBay throws up an unexpected gem and we snap them up in an instant.  This one was just the same, an article on Mental Hospitals from 1953 focusing on the Winson Green hospital in Birmingham, which is now a prison.  We can’t say much more, so we will let the images do the talking.

Having been in hibernation for quite some time now, we often find ourselves in a reminiscent mood. A number years ago, back when we first started exploring, a derelict piece of industry popped up right on our doorstep and we had to check it out. Having grown up in the south we were not used to this as we had the big old asylums to play in. Industry was a thing of the northern territories and old mills dating from the Victorian times were rare as hens teeth. Our proximity to London meant that any land within the major towns, and away from the green belt, was quickly repurposed. The industrial centres in the south of London such as The Docklands, Woolwich, Croydon and Hayes all quickly developed into commuter suburbs. Our local town, Woking, was famously linked with Vickers Aviation firm at the Brooklands circuit, and the large James Walker factory in the centre of town.

A smaller firm existed called the Unwin Brother’s Printers in Old Woking, had held a presence in the town since 1896 and were the countries oldest printing company. The company had merged with another local printers in 2007 and closed their Old Woking site in order to move down the road to Chessington. At the time, we had no idea that the company even existed. When we did eventually figure out where it was, we were not surprised by this. The firm was located bang in the middle of a field on the outskirts of town. We had driven past it many many times and not even seen it!

Imagine our surprise when it popped up out of the blue on one of the forums, we only thought Old Woking had a AAOR to look at, if you were bored. Some explorers post about epic 500km trips into Europe and back, this isn’t one of those posts, we drove about 3 miles. The explore wasn’t particularly eventful, but the building was scattered with a few good piles to rummage through. We happily meandered around for and hour or two until we turned a corner to spy the back of a security guard making their way down a corridor. Following a hasty retreat back up the stairs, we made legs and left, setting off a pair of dogs in residing in the back of a van.

Two weeks later some other explorers succumbed to the security guard, who let their dogs loose on them.  After that, Unwins was given a wide berth and forgotten about.  We only went back when we heard demolition had finished. We learnt a valuable lesson from this explore, – look local, there is more than you realised (which is why we have a very large google earth file of leads).

Every explorer has them, those that say they don’t are probably lying. Furthermore, many of the exploring blogs that inhabit the web appear to be epic success after epic success. Failure doesn’t generate interest, no one wants to hear about hours of trudging about in the undergrowth and fruitless leads, or standing looking forlornly at a building that is just out of reach.  So why are we writing this? Well, we have had our fair share of failures over the years, it is part of the process. We have turned up to sites more times than we like to admit only to be thwarted by fresh new hoarding, security making a sudden appearance or land pirates stripping anything that is or isn’t nailed down. Our favourite is well timed a passer-by who walks by at the very moment you wish they hadn’t, shattering the confidence of the moment.

So here it is, a brief catalogue of our most memorable failures whilst exploring.

Pyestock, our very first. Having visited Pyestock on a number of occasions, we were the cock of the walk and decided to take some of our university friends along with us. Having barely even made it into the first building before we encountered another soul walking about snapping away from the gantries around a test cell. We thought we had lost him when he walked off and out of view from where we stood in Test Cell 3. Only to have him suddenly bear down upon us in a high vis, talking into his radio saying “Got ’em”. Game Over. Startled. Unsure how this had happened. Looking back it was a rookie move, one of the forums (28Dayslater) had organised a mass invasion for the same weekend. Being seen by the site owners, they were compelled to act. We had walked into it with out realising. A quick murmur from one of our friends asking if 28 Days Later was a film left them wondering what was what and let us on our way.

Roll on a few years later to one of Europes largest brickworks, Stewartby Brickworks.  As it was derelict, we decided to pay it a visit. A vast piece of industry in Bedfordshire that was responsible for building half of London with its London Stock yellow bricks, now lay derelict, arms thrown open to intrepid explorers. With the introduction of emissions regulations by the EU and the subsequent closure, we decided to head up and have a look with a fellow explorer, KingRat. We were prepared, we had information that said to cut through the bushes.In our wisdom, we entirely ignored this and instead we sprinted to an old workshop in the middle of open ground. We should have followed the advice given. One jumpy security guard later and we had the old bill roll past, stop and asking to look in our bags.

London. There have been many a successful explorers in London, a small group cracked the city like a nut and feasted on the inside a few years ago. We will freely admit that we don’t have to cart our balls around in a wheel barrow, they aren’t big enough to see us climb down into the guts of the underground.  However, we have had a few good explores in London. We have also had many failures. A few years ago, one half of TheTimeChamber found themselves dropping down the inside of the wall of Lots Road Power Station only to land next to a security van with a sleeping guard in it. Cause and effect. We scrambled back over the wall and a quietly sauntered off into the distance as if nothing had happened. Comparatively, there is always a slight sense of fun when you drop over a wall, startle a few passersby and disappear into the Underground.

Longcross Barracks. This is probably our finest moment. We were wet behind the ears and after Pyestock we thought we knew what we were doing and that life was easy. After arriving, we set off around the perimeter fence looking for a way through the razor wire tangle. We walked and walked. Even walking a little too close to a motorway looking for a way in. Becoming dark we called it a night, petrol burnt and legs scratched for nothing.  It was only when a friend showed us around did he make it look so simple, we had come within feet of entry.

We don’t want to admit how many miles we have wasted following a lead. It is all part of the fun. There are many more stories, we have hidden in cupboards, beneath floors and around corners because an unexpected noise has reached down into a primitive part of the hind brain and made us have a rethink.  Embarrassingly, some of these noises have been dripping rain water from a roof collapse and onto a metal surface.

On a cold a blustery January evening a few years ago we found ourselves parking up in suburbia.  News had broken that there had been a partial collapse in a local park and a hole had opened up to reveal a series of tunnels.  Rumours quickly spread that a forgotten World War II air raid shelter had caused the collapse and that the Council were already onsite to repair the damage and prevent any further access.  As both halves of TheTimeChamber were ringing each other to see if we could get over in time, other locals were also ringing around to see who was free to head over and see Carshalton Park Air Raid Shelter.

Prior to World War II, the central government commissioned local authorities to undertake a survey of their area to ascertain if there were premises in shopping, business and other areas where the public were likely to congregate more than seven minutes’ walk from their homes. The result of this led to a series of buried trenches being dug in numerous boroughs throughout the country to provide protection to the local population. Carshalton was no different and set about constructing accommodation for a total of 7000 people in various parks throughout their borough.

Park Location

St Helier – 3000
Carshalton Par – 1000
Wrythe Green – 1000
Stanley Park – 100
Banstead Road – 400
Harold Road (in conjunction with Sutton & Cheam Council) – 500

After the war, many of the shelters across the country were simply bricked up, covered over and forgotten. With their nature and the their true location forgotten, access to an old Air Raid Shelter is not always possible.  But from time to time, they do become accessible and we do try and head over to see them (local ones at least).  Upon arriving at Carshalton and knowing that others were going to be joining us, we headed off into the park to try and find the access. We found that the workmen had temporarily sealed access by dropping a skip over the collapse. Simple and effective.  A little creativity and we found a way down and dropped into the bunker.

The bunker was in a very good condition; there we no graffiti or signs that the local kids had accessed it at all.  Light fixtures, wiring, the rotting heaps of benches and other artefacts where still in situ. It wasn’t a huge bunker, so we didn’t spent a great deal of time down there and we decided it was time to climb back out and make a move.  The shelter was sealed back up a few days after we had visited, presumably because ITN paid the site a visit and featured it on the local news.