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Urban Exploring


Willy

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Nothing twisted about it - they're interesting places.

As far as stories go, his were mainly about people getting beaten, shut in cupboards, etc. Their was the 'notorious Ward 16', so he said, where 'repeat offenders' were taken. I'm sure there was plenty of exaggeration, but it's inevitable that stuff like this (and worse) would've happened. Who was there to listen to their complaints? And certainly in the heyday of the asylums, the 1960s and before that, it would have been much, much worse.

Bear in mind also that people would have been sent there for conditions which now are easily treated and dealt with in daily life, such as OCD and ADHD, general anxiety disorders, etc.

It all makes them a very interesting explore, makes it thought provoking and in some ways a bit emotional. You can't help but feel in a way that the ghosts of the former patients are still there in a metaphorical way. Hard to explain, but when you find personal effects, artwork, letters and clothing still there, it's like in a way the patients never left.

Of all of them, Cane Hill (as mentioned before by Lee) was far and away my favourite. This guy is a pretty good authority on the place, and explored it many times before it got totally trashed, and before most of the fire damage. The story about David Bowie's half brother on this page is quite moving. It's this kind of stuff that makes it so much more than 'trespassing in some old building'.

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what you say about the patients still being there, thats what rea;y gets me and just thinking of what used to happen there really facinates me. i would love to get into one and have a mooch about just to see what its like. Its crazy but it just grabs me and really intrests me some how?

i remeber reading a report on 28DL about a network of underground tunnels which went for miles, and there was a photo of a crushed up Clubman GT1275 in a bronzey/ orange color.

Was very facinating!

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Yeah, the Mini was really interesting. That was under the Austin/Rover Longbridge plant in Birmingham. God knows why or how it ended up down there. The tunnels do indeed go on for miles - personally I only did about 100m of them one night to get into a building, but those who made proper visits to do the tunnels found some interesting stuff. Some of them were used for the manufacture of aircraft parts during the war.

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haha tom, Me and my mate felt likea little exploration yesterday, Walked through fields and fields and found a quarry. and one of the hills in the quarry had loads of broken/complete plastic disks for clay (or plastic) pigeon shooting, We carried on having a look around and found a skip with massive boxes full of shotgun shell's (and an action man wearing pink hotpants ;) NO SHIT! :lol: ) Thought we would end up getting shot at, So we got out abit after that. :P

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Yeah, pretty much anyway. Id love to go with snap and some of the guys on the forum to London etc, but ill be content with Birmingham until I get my experience up, im going to start going climbing again aswell, so I can get access to more places. I am officially mad about it. Some guy scaled a 70 meter high chimney with a 30ft climb just to get to the ladders! Awesome!

Will.

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haha tom, Me and my mate felt likea little exploration yesterday, Walked through fields and fields and found a quarry. and one of the hills in the quarry had loads of broken/complete plastic disks for clay (or plastic) pigeon shooting, We carried on having a look around and found a skip with massive boxes full of shotgun shell's (and an action man wearing pink hotpants ;) NO SHIT! :lol: ) Thought we would end up getting shot at, So we got out abit after that. :P

I would have said it was a clay pigeon range rather than a quarry.

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i hope to see the results of this, OT's pics have got me wanting to have a look, but going underground is an invite only affair isn't it?

Anybody could go there in theory, but it helps if you're with someone who knows the Catacombs and has French contacts. Obviously it would be easy to get lost down there!

[Edited - sorry, can't show these yet[

Edited by snappel
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only problem is going into somewhere full of crack heads and junkies and getting knifed i guess.

Yeah it's a bugger when you find angry tramps, and you can't just walk another direction because your no where near anything like a housing estate haha.

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The 4D is a good sized one if you want a weapon, but I tend to leave it at home now as it's too big. The 6D is far too big and can be classed by Police as an offensive weapon. SIA security guards aren't allowed to use them for this reason, so I hear.

My torch of choice at the moment is a cheap LED one off eBay. Aluminium construction, loads of LED's. Better for lighting places up for photos, although the beam doesn't travel too far. I also have a 2D Maglite which is a good size, plus it sits nicely on the belt-loop you can get.

As for crackheads and junkies... I try and stay away from places that look that grotty. Right now I'm trying to visit more places that have recently closed. I think I'm 'done' with derelict stuff for now, purely because I did so much of it last year. Still, as a rule of thumb, the better the security measures at a site, the less chance of it a) having been vandalised and b ) being inhabited by crackheads or (worse) pikeys.

With all 'explores', it's good to go through a risk-assessment in your head first. Look at the place and think of the hazards/potential dangers there. If it's in the middle of a big nasty ghetto housing estate, then be careful. Getting caught by pikeys in the middle of their makeshift shanty-town isn't fun, I assure you...

Edited by snappel
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Snappel is right, SIA security guards aren't supposed to carry anything above a 4D, but I prefer not to carry a mag lite at all when I work, find it provokes more than it intimidates.

As for torches a lot of the guys at work use one version or another of this they're f**king bright, enough to stun and dazzle anyone, and pretty well focused too.

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