History
The institute was founded as the Gray Laboratory at Mount Vernon Hospital by Louis Harold Gray in 1953 as the world's first radiobiological institute. It houses a unique Van de Graaff accelerator. Early research was mainly focused on the oxygen effect to improve the radio sensitivity of tumours. Research continued on this and other areas such as proton acceleration until the institute was relocated to Oxford in 2008.
The Explore
Myself and a friend being quite local to this place decided to check it out on an uneventful Sunday. The building itself is quite unassuming from the outside, and actually surprised me with how extensive the interior was.
All the windows and doors seemed to be grated, so we thought it best to see if roof access was possible. After a rather sketchy climb, we were relieved to find a viable entrance up there. The roof seems to house generators of some kind, these rooms were flooded though.
Heading inside the building, it was in quite a state. The walls and flooring especially had taken a beating, although considering it's been abandoned for 15 years, not awful. Desk, chairs and cabinets were all intact, and by some miracle there were almost untouched shelves full of textbooks and scientific journals.
The lower levels had a complete lack of light, and the ceilings had caved in causing all the wiring to spill out. Looked like something out of a Resident Evil game, would've been quite scared if I was by myself.
By far the most interesting find was the Van de Graaff accelerator. It was a little tricky to find, but worth the search.
All in all, day well spent.
The Pictures
The computers were older than me 😂
Apologies for the poor quality of some of the pictures, my DSLR decided to artificially brighten the darker shots
Thank you for reading!
The institute was founded as the Gray Laboratory at Mount Vernon Hospital by Louis Harold Gray in 1953 as the world's first radiobiological institute. It houses a unique Van de Graaff accelerator. Early research was mainly focused on the oxygen effect to improve the radio sensitivity of tumours. Research continued on this and other areas such as proton acceleration until the institute was relocated to Oxford in 2008.
The Explore
Myself and a friend being quite local to this place decided to check it out on an uneventful Sunday. The building itself is quite unassuming from the outside, and actually surprised me with how extensive the interior was.
All the windows and doors seemed to be grated, so we thought it best to see if roof access was possible. After a rather sketchy climb, we were relieved to find a viable entrance up there. The roof seems to house generators of some kind, these rooms were flooded though.
Heading inside the building, it was in quite a state. The walls and flooring especially had taken a beating, although considering it's been abandoned for 15 years, not awful. Desk, chairs and cabinets were all intact, and by some miracle there were almost untouched shelves full of textbooks and scientific journals.
The lower levels had a complete lack of light, and the ceilings had caved in causing all the wiring to spill out. Looked like something out of a Resident Evil game, would've been quite scared if I was by myself.
By far the most interesting find was the Van de Graaff accelerator. It was a little tricky to find, but worth the search.
All in all, day well spent.
The Pictures
The computers were older than me 😂
Apologies for the poor quality of some of the pictures, my DSLR decided to artificially brighten the darker shots
Thank you for reading!
