After closure the grounds and buildings have been used for various films and TV productions, the one that sticks in my mind the most over the last few years was an episode of Black Mirror which had me suddenly shouting Carmel College!! at my TV screen when I saw the inside of the manor house on there.
Carmel College is one of my local explores, and despite it's closeness to where I live it's a place I've only ever been twice. The area between Wallingford and Reading is one of the wealthiest parts of south Oxfordshire and northern Berkshire and is home to a cluster of abandoned properties - Carmel, Basildon Grotto, the somewhat infamous Coombe Park, The Springs Hotel, as well as the now otherwise unexplorable Hookend Manor and Fairmile Hospital to name a few so it's fair to say for such a well-off area I've been somewhat spoiled over the time I've been exploring.
Anyway I digress, back to Carmel. My first visit here was a decade ago, way back in 2010 and we failed to get into anything. Back then we had no issues from what would come to be known as a fairly unpredictable, unprofessional, loud, violent caretaker who lives in the grounds. The years went by and I'd heard various horror stories from people who'd been caught on site about this guy who made Denbigh's Elywn on his worst day look like a puppy dog so I decided it wasn't really my thing as I'd rather avoid a confrontation if at all possible. However fast forward to the beginning of January 2015 and I get a message from a friend saying they're going and would I like to come along? Sure why not I thought. What the hey, what's the worst that can happen right it'll be a fun day out as I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to be.
Everything went swimmingly to start with. We got onto the site easily and made our way to the manor house and quickly found the way in, we were taking great care at the start around the various PIRs inside however it soon became apparent that none of them were plugged into anything and you could simply pick them up and carry them around the building with you to leave in surprising places. We enjoyed a good hour and a half or so inside and then ventured outside to grab some external shots which is where it all went a bit, as they say, 'Pete Tong'. We emerged from the house and took an immediate left around the rear of the manor to get some different angles, and at the time none of us realised that taking that route meant we were stood pretty much in the groundskeeper's garden. His little bungalow was off to our right and suddenly his Very Large Dog went ballistic inside the bungalow. At this point we had a collective 'oh crap' moment and decided to make haste back to the other side - and as we did so he emerged from his bungalow shouting and swearing and yelling and all sorts. We were walking briskly towards our intended exit point at this time and didn't see that at some point he'd jumped into his van and had made off after us. We'd almost made it to the gate which would lead us safely off the property when he thought we would like a better look at his van and he drove it straight at us, nearly hitting whoever it was out of our group who was at the back. Needless to say our brisk walk got a fair bit brisker after that and we walked off site with him still shouting obscenities in our direction.
I'd love to go back at some point as I need to see the indoor pool here as well as the labs but the threat of having a sump on my face means it's not really high up on my list of priorities right now.
Thanks for looking
