Report - Billinge Hospital, Wigan - June 2013

[NoodleThesis]

I have to admit this one was a bit of an anticlimax. I went expecting the main building to still be standing, and it was just a pile of rubble. All in all a pretty rubbish explore but better than nothing.

Explored with Tom Sherman and Urbex1988.

History nabbed from Tom Sherman's post.

In June 2004, the maternity hospital was closed and maternity facilities were transferred to other units at hospitals in surrounding districts. Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Trust, who administered at Billinge Maternity Hospital, were transferred to a new maternity unit at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary (more commonly known as Wigan Infirmary) in Wigan. Maternity care units were upgraded in surrounding boroughs at Bolton Hospital, Salford Royal, Chorley Hospital, Warrington Hospital and Ormskirk Hospital
In March 2007, demolition work on the maternity hospital building commenced. As of May 2007, only a small section of the maternity unit is left standing.
Opened in 1968, Billinge Maternity Hospital served as the maternity facility for the surrounding areas, including much of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, parts of the Metropolitan Borough of St.Helens and parts of the District of West Lancashire.
Billinge Hospital was originally founded in 1837 as a Wigan Poor Law Union hospital and workhouse.

Oh and yeah, some of these images look pretty bad. I had to make do with a higher ISO and sometimes flash since the tripod hole on my camera has lost it's threading. I improvised where I was able to though. I don't recommend any of you trust your £150+ camera to a wobbly 'wet floor' cone though.

 

[connor swift]

Me and my friend went to this place and driving past it looked erie enough because it was so dark and you could just about see the Windows of the building behind all the bushes and trees. So we parked up and headed to the entrance which was gated off but we managed so slip through a gap at the side of the gates. So we got through and as we are standing on the grounds of the hospital everything just seemed to go completely silent, no cars driving past, no cricket sounds, just silence. We only had our phone torches so we couldn't see anything that was more than 5 metres in front of us which made everything 10x worse. As we were slowly walking to the building we noticed that there was a way around to the back of the building were there was possibly an entry into the building.. So me and my friend are both just stood there looking at this huge building right in front of us and we both heard what sounded like coughing or faint crying coming from in front of us and the only thing in front of us was the hospital.. And the noise really did sound like it was coming from inside the building. The sound carried on for about 10 seconds and then stopped but then started again for another 10 seconds and then completely stopped so at this point me and my friend are completely freaked out looking at eatch other. Then I heard what sounded like someone standing on a bunch of leaves on the ground coming from the side of the building to were we was going to walk round and we both just ran as fast as we could to the gap in the gate and never went back in. It was almost as if we interrupted some sort of thing inside the building because of the way the crying sound just stopped from inside the building and then the sound of stepping on leaves appeared right in front of us outside the bundling. I don't know if anyone else has experienced anything like this and I know people are going to say we are over exaggerating but them noises were to clear to be just nothing.