This shot was taken in one of the first rooms I ventured into. Viveca was taking control downstairs whilst I took upstairs. The floor was quite dodgy here to say the least. It can be seen that there are no floorboards towards the back of the room and if you look closely there is a [...]
The kitchen in the manor house was one of the rooms on the ground floor that had original features intact. This shot was towards the end of the visit and I was heartened to find this room with all the facilities intact. THe kitchen sink shown, a great Aga and two hand pumps for fresh [...]
Just a quick post before retiring tonight. This evenings image has failed uploading twice, so this one will have to do . It's another of the fantastic organ left in the front room. this really was a sight to behold in the afternoon sun. Although only one half of the two windows was unshuttered, there [...]
Back to some less contentious issues after the last post. The conclusion seems to be both on here and Facebook, that we should leave things as they are. If everyone were to take something from a site there would be nothing left to see - like this lovely brass door handle. the ridged hold what [...]
I've been thinking that I might write something slightly controversial regarding the Urbex mantra- 'Take only pictures, leave only footprints' over the last few days so here goes. I think I'll be doing two posts, one a counter argument to the other. Urbex is the exploration of abandoned buildings or locations of one sort or [...]
This weekend we made a trip fairly far afield. After seeing a contacts images of this location I was keen to go and check it out. We heard that it was due for demo, so I decided that better go sooner rather than later, otherwise I'd only kick myself afterwords for missing such a treat. [...]
Here's a typical view of the architecture and decay in the manor house - somewhat crusty, but not yet falling apart (too much). You can also see the scaffold that has been put in place to bolster / facilitate restoration through the arch. As with all of these images time was of the essence, so [...]
Here's a close-up of the awesome old skool craftsmanship in the manor house library. This shot was enhanced by the lovely morning light coming in through the windows. I was really taken with the contrast between the light outside and the way it was falling on the pretty metal work. Goes to show that in [...]
This image is typical of the rooms in The Manor - tidy and swept. Ready for the contractors to come in and get busy. Interestingly there were a couple of paintings on the window, probably set up by a previous visitor. Not an overly interesting subject, but easy to process using Photomatix and Nik filters, [...]
Right at the top of the house were a couple of rooms that were still left with 'things' in them. This was the only one with a bed though. The setting indicated that this was probably servants quarters at one point. There was even a bell above the door outside. The room looked as if [...]
Another quick post as its Friday and I have to have a quick turn around. I've seen many great pictures of staircases, but never been anywhere that I've been able to grab great images myself. Consequently in this location I went into staircase overdrive. Here's the view looking up from the ground floor. Click the [...]
Those were the days eh! Three years rent £13! This was on top of a pile of papers left in the Great Hall (which I have now found out was a library). Thing like this I hope are kept, it shows a good deal of history about the place, there were many other artefacts laying [...]
Just a really fast post this evening as I'm heading out! Click the image for the full gallery.
I'ts funny that I often complain on here about not having any inspiration to process images. The advice from others - GO SHOOT. Recently I've been in good processing health and for some reason I've managed to rattle through these images really quickly - I have about 10 in the bank all ready to go.I [...]
Not sure why I chose the title for the image, possibly as my dinner was ready after I'd finished processing. I don’t know about any of the other photographers, but when I get home I cant wait to get my shots onto the PC and look at them full size, rather like a child on [...]
My urbex colleague and I had been planning this one for a couple of weeks. We had originally thought about doing a south coast industrial location, however he wanted to go somewhere totally different as he's a fan of 'old places' . An early start was planned - 4am kick off for the 2 hour [...]
The front of the housing block looked pretty bleak, all doors and windows shuttered and welded closed. The estate was deserted except for a few people passing through as a short cut. Yet the London traffic was always present. I'd really like to go and shoot some more here, but felt more unsafe than I [...]
I though that I would finish off the Heygate images this evening. As the area is somewhat 'dodgy', with lots of under under and overpasses and covering quite a large area I didn't really hang around and only took about 6 or seven sets of brackets.My apprehension wasn't helped by a medic on a motorbike [...]
Another bath I'm afraid - I took this one on the previous visit but from another angle - HERE. Again I have used focal point from OnOne to blur the windows and wall to the right. I have little more to say about this image at the moment - its late and I am feeling [...]
This is a more processed image than my normal work and done with a bit more of a lighter hand. I think it shows that a little more time has been taken over this one compared to the darker images. As the UE specialists will attest - asylums and baths seem to go well together. [...]
This lift has been like this since the start of my visitations at Hellingly - boarded up and with two floors down. I liked the symmetry and know that with decent processing I would be able to bring out the darkness inside the shaft. This is in one of the blocks still standing and likely [...]
A Change from the emotional stuff this evening. Viveca an I went and had a look in the only building that is left untouched at Hellingly. I'm not sure what this was originally, I've done a little research but cant see that anyone else has taken images from here. Whilst the main asylum was still [...]
This is quite literally the end of Hellingly - the floor finishes here. As the diggers move in I have no doubt that this is now rubble. I'm going back tomorrow for what will most likely be the last time. I think I have documented the asylum almost enough and have pretty much all of [...]
After processing the monster pano in the last post doing single images seems somewhat dull! However I liked this one quite a bit. This was taken shot was take shortly after smashing the back screen protection on my 550D. I placed the tripod on a piece of wood board (in the foreground) and stepped on [...]
After creating the previous panorama and seeing comments I decided to have another go. I wasn’t particularly happy with the way the top and bottom halves lined up and really wanted to add the ceiling decorations. I wasn’t able to do this on the image before. One of the comments on the previous image was [...]
The hall at Hellingly is the main attraction - huge and decorated with ornate ceiling roses. I'd been wanting to do a pano of this location for a while and actually forgot to do it the last time I went, this time it was in my mind from the outset. This has been one of [...]
Another trip to the partially demolished asylum for what may be my (second) penultimate visit, still a little more to see ;-) Destruction is happening at a fair speed with less there this of the building left this week than last. There's still plenty to see though. Most of the rooms are stripped - so [...]
One of the few items actaully left in the asylum are the baths. Being old and iron or steel they must be heavy and cumbersome for the contractors to remove so are no doubt left for the wrecking ball to deal with. This was a small bathroom off of one of the wards, like all [...]
I liked the way the corridor framed the pool of water and light in this image, the reflection almost mirroring the window in the adjacent room. My explorer friend spotted this first and he is King Of Reflections, so I expect that he'll have something similar up soon. I was immediately taken with the flooring [...]
As the construction / destruction is continuing at pace at Hellingly there are several parts of the remaining buildings where there were once corridors that are now open to the world. Although there are plenty of wards left, many of the connecting corridors that we used to traverse are no longer left and iopen out [...]
