Author: S8

Now, Best of British is not a magazine we normally read but we made an exception when given a copy by a relative. Imagine our surprise when amongst the pages we found reference to this very website. Seems we have caught someones attention, which is nice!

See the article in question below:

If your a reader of Best of British we would love to hear your thoughts on the website, so drop us a line through the contacts page.

Oh and you can find the website for the Best of British here

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It is like owning a car that rolls over onto 100,000 miles, you can’t help but watch! This month sees us enter our sixth year as a website and we thought we would write you a post, whilst wearing our rose tinted spectacles, on how it all started and the years in between.

Back in 2007 we found ourselves stepping through a fence and into Pyestock, a sprawling industrial centre in the heart of the home counties, and we entered the shady world of Urban Exploring. We had unintentionally started big, so big in fact we kept on returning to see more. This was until we pushed our luck a little too far and found ourselves being firmly escorted from the site with the stern warning never to return.

Pyestock had us hook, line and sinker and we were addicted. We cannot really put it into words and if you read other blogs around the internet, other people can’t either. But there is something about exploring that keeps drawing you back for more, even when you think you have had enough. Maybe it is that smell of damp decaying wood or the juxtaposition of seeing plant life growing in the middle of a derelict hospital ward?  Who knows, it’s hard to quantify or put in words.

So, we left Pyestock with our tails between our legs and found some fellow explorers and drove all over the south of England for a summer. It was only when the winter arrived did we let up and become a little more lax in our adventures. So as the cold nights drew in, we sat down and started to code a website. We found that the hardest thing with starting a website was the naming of it and we struggled for inspiration. That was until we opened up a vinyl mailer and read an album tracklist and a name sprung up. If you are wondering which album it came from, it was a track off the RAM Trilogy Molten Beats album. An album that we had grown up with during our teenage years. Anyway, a website was born and the exploring continued on.

Over the last 5 odd years, we have seen the sites and visited the majority of the tourist traps. We climbed, crawled and fell our way through the abundant dereliction that surrounded us at the time. With it, our website grew and morphed into something we hadn’t quite envisioned. We found that the underground sites and the old asylums took our interest most. We still have a huge backlog of places to upload now, but we will get to that soon. There were a few places that escaped us, but we saw some awesome stuff and made some good friends on the way!

As with everything, the landscape of the UE community started to change. Forums imploded and fell apart and the community we knew disintegrated. This didn’t stop anyone exploring though, all that had happened was that we moved into different homes and peered over the fence to see what the neighbours were doing. It was like a bitter divorce, but with everyone carrying on as normal. Exploring changed too, the large asylums once coveted had started to disappear, security companies had become more vigilant due to the lead thefts and good sites were kept much more quiet to prevent them being ruined. Our hobby was even mentioned by The Powers.

Here on TheTimeChamber we had fallen into a state of semi-retirement, hardly exploring anything during an entire year as nothing peaked our interest.  Life had simply got in the way as we beavered away towards our respective degrees. We had discovered that gone were the days of the easy explore we had started out with (if we are honest, we haven’t ever really gone for the hardcore explores). We shockingly had to start looking for things, rather than relying solely on the forums and the few trusty derelict sites we loved. Smaller sites begun to be discovered around the country, as well as going out and asking some places if we could have a poke around. Whilst these places lacked the size of somewhere like West Park, they did contain a certain charm and made for some great photographic opportunities. There was a downside to this, it meant that instead of driving halfway across the country to look at something you knew would take a chunk of the day to explore, mini road trips had to be planned. Something that didn’t always pay off as well as expected. Other times they did.

This didn’t stop us and slowly we came back into exploring. We rebuilt the website to incorporate more features, more research, and added this blog and and started to get back out there. We still relied heavily on the forums for our leads as, lets face it, they are a great resource if you want to find a few places to see. We also found that the people we had met over the last few years would drop us a line and invite us out to somewhere, which has lead to some of the best trips we have ever had.

This brings us to now. We still explore and it takes us a while, but the site does get updated too. There are a few plans in the pipeline, but in true laziness, they have yet to be started. Europe beckons. Who knows how TheTimeChamber will morph and grow over the next 6 years?

Box Mine is one of the largest Freestone Quarries in the Bath Area, it covers over 15 miles of under ground tunnels, dead ends, cranes and cross roads.  All of which looks very similar. Very, very similar. It is also a publicly accessible quarry and has a handily located pub right next door. This is unlike a large number of the other underground quarries in the Bath area which have been used for storage, or more ominously, MOD operations. We recommend you head to Google after reading this post and search for Burlington, and prepare to be amazed.

With this in ours minds and looking for something to do, we decided to join a group of friends and attempt to see the sites that Box has to offer. Nearly the entire group had never seen the quarry before, yet ourselves and RatsnRuins had the most experience.  Which wasn’t a great deal and accumulated to a few very quick whirlwind tours to see the tourist spots of Box.  This meant we were designated guides (and I couldn’t leave the Rat hanging by his tail). Armed with more torches, batteries and jaffa cakes than we could carry, we set off in the direction of the backdoor…

First up was the Cathedral. I set off pretending I knew exactly where I was going and started to lead the group. In reality I was following the scrawled directions on the wall that led us to the Cathedral.  Essentially this is a huge chasm that was mined vertically over 150 years ago, with the stone being hoisted 100ft up through the ceiling.

After this, things begun to temporarily unravel and we managed to misplace the world around us.  Or less poetically, we were lost and had to relearn our lefts and rights. We had led the entire group down a dead end and when we tried to back track to where we thought we went wrong, we found another dead end.  At this point, hunched over a map, we collectively thought ‘oh shit’.  We had said to the pub that we would be out after4 hours, and with all the faffing in the cathedral, we had been underground almost 2 hours. So another panicked look at the map did in fact reveal we were lost.  With this, we back tracked again and realised at our age that we should know which was is left and which way is right.

We eventually found our way onto the main haulage route (B12) and set off in the direction of the ‘Robots’, which have been created from the remnants of old MOD bricks and are set in a massive crossroads. It is a random and comedic scene to discover when you are miles underground.

Now on my last trip down Box over four years ago, the group I was with decided to cause a sacrilegious act and demolish a large amount of the robots.  We had a plan though.  And like most males, we were thinking big.  Giant Robot Big.  And four years later, it still stands, lording it over the minions. As we turned the corner, KingRat and I burst into a fit of laughter as The Giant cast its shadow over us!  Note: I think it has now be demolished!

Anyway, after a brief reunion and a spot of cheese and wine we set off into the dark again.  This time to see Brewers Drift and the red door of mystery, we also saw a few other little spots.  It was on our way out that we ended up lost again.  But this time, we were following previous directions on the wall and not our own senseless direction.  Both of which stopped dead and decided it was a good time to leave, abandoning and head for some chips. This was after we had all crawled over some deads and into the world muddiest cavern.  So we turned back, and then realised we should head back through the same way.  With a little toing, froing and minor flapping – whilst the rest of the group enjoying a quick and unexpected break – we finally found our way.

Which led to the pub, for a well earned bowl of chips and half a dozen double yokers.  Top stuff.

(You may notice the lack of photos, and for once, I wasn’t really taking any.  With the navigating, climbing and fretting, photos never cross our mind.  Next time, it will be a slow photo tour).

Here at TheTimeChamber we will openly admit that we do not get out an explore as much as we used too, or would like. Somehow some people seem to be on the move almost constantly, devouring every single derelict structure in the country with their cameras. We are not entirely sure how they do this, but work and life are our excuses for only popping out occasionally (admittedly, January has seen us do more exploring that the latter half of last year).

However, every once in a while we do find ourselves heading off on the road, or rails, searching for something to do. Most of the time we sensibly planned what we are going to do, and other times we turn up in the middle of no where and then realise we have forgotten everything. This time, we found ourselves sitting on the train heading towards Leeds.

Leeds is a place we have visited before, and once again we were dropping in on some friends for a little wander and a few beers. That a lie as it wasn’t beer, it was rum, a little too much rum. Dam the 12 year old Anejo.  We would also like to curse the taxi denying us a double cheeseburger at two o’clock in the morning.

But no one wants to hear us mumble on about getting drunk on a saturday, nor do they want to hear the typical ‘we turned up here, and took photos of this’.

In fact, we didn’t taken many photos of anything, or visit lots of places.  We only had time to visit a small number of sites, none of which were ground breaking, special or particularly revered.  But in terms of dereliction, they were perfect.  And the company made the day.

So here is a small selection of photos from Bramham House and St Peters Church.  Both derelict and battered beyond belief, yet highly photogenic. We have decided against building dedicated pages for each site as it goes against the current thinking of the site, so we are using a blog instead!

Enjoy!

 

London Underground decided to open up Aldwych Station for tourists recently, luckily we got hold of some of the tickets and headed down with some friends and paid it a visit. Very rarely, unless you want to run the rails, does London get to see behind the scenes of the Underground Network.  It would have been amazing to see this place without the guides, the crowds and the ban on dSLR’s, but running down the tunnels isn’t something we fancy.  Although, the guys over on SilentUK and other sites deserve some respect for their exploits on the Underground.

It was an interesting trip, although London Underground had decided to ban dSLR cameras, as they have a sensor that is too higher quality for their liking.  So we skirted round that rule by loading up an old 35mm camera with some ISO1600 film.  Bizarre decision from TfL that didn’t entirely make sense.

Like most tours, we were split into two groups and herded like sheep.  Quickly being guided through each section with the promise of time to take photographs afterwards.  Invariably, there wasn’t.  So we did our best, stopped paying full attention to the guides and wandered off to take photographs.

Never mind, eh?  We still had a good time and saw a little part of London that many people don’t get to see.  The station, even though closed, still leads a relatively busy life.  The western platforms are used for Emergency Services training as it offers a section of the network where in tunnel scenarios can be simulated.  It is also used as a filming location.

The western platform is used to trial architectural and engineering prototypes – the posters on the wall date from the seventies, when the trialed a new glue!

So after a whirlwind tour, we headed off for a brew and then the train home.

For a full history and set of photos, we have another write up here.