THE HISTORY:
The care home, Hamilton Lodge, was one that catered towards people with learning disabilities, mental-related issues, and the elderly. Established in 1942 and undergoing a refurbishment along the way, Hamilton Lodge could house up to 34 people on its 18 acres of land. Selbourne Court was another building round back that could house 18 more individuals and behind this is Bristowe Close. 4 separate bungalows were situated here with 4 flats within each. Through lack of and inability to retain staff, buildings being deemed unfit for purpose, and a pricey repair bill, Hamilton Lodge closed its doors in 2017. With plans for the 18 acres to be turned into a new housing estate but a lack of funds, the lodge has been left to rot away since its closure. Up until Blackfinch Property stepped in and provided The Elemento Group with a 20-month loan which is being used to complete the purchase of the land and fund construction of the first 12 homes. With funds now in place, plans are being submitted to re-develop the remainder of the site. The main building was also set ablaze at the very end of June in the early hours of the morning. Sadly, work began tearing down the main facility sometime after May 2023 when @DE-eVOLVED's report on this place HERE. It's a shadow of its former self with half of the building gone already. A shame because that looked like a lovely interior, too!
THE EXPLORE:
Planned to attack this one just before midday but heavy traffic held us off until the afternoon. Haven't been for a good derp in a bloody long time, so wanted something that wasn't going to be too much of a challenge and relatively nearby and this place ticked all the boxes. I did have to do a little bit of research, as I read @Urbex17690's report about this place (HERE) and I really didn't fancy crawling through a dense forest to get in. Spoiler alert, no crawling needed. Can pretty much walk right on in, if you know where to look! It was only two of us and it's been a while for us both, so this was a nice treat to ease back into it.We explored the property from back to front. As construction works are now underway at the main building, with all the equipment and welfare facilities being right down the front, it was a no-brainer to play safe and approach this from anywhere but! The Bungalows were cool to see once you stepped into the first one and had a look around but they're all exactly the same so it's like you've explored the same building twice already by the time you get to the third. All of these are wide open with no doors and most windows smashed or pulled down, so it was a casual stroll around these with no hassle at the very least. A lot of the rooms with daylight have been smashed up but the rooms that still have the windows sealed are in an ok condition. The fourth and final bungalow we went to look in had its doorway still sealed up and having done the previous three already, I was over them at this point and didn't even want to try and find another way in, naturally, we moved onto the Selbourne Close building which was a nice change of pace from the bungalows, that's for sure.
After mooching around this next building and pissing around taking photos, we ventured towards the clearly half-demolished main house and stumbled across an Armadillo. Chilled outside and planned for the worst but having seen previous reports on here saying security is seemingly a no-show, we weren't too worried. Avoiding the first armadillo, we explored an outbuilding that seemed to have been used to store stuff, and the main rooms upstairs were in a bad way with some being completely swarmed by flies. Finally, we headed towards the main building. Silly me wearing shorts (it was a nice sunny day) I got attacked by brambles trying to avoid the Armadillos, so eventually just said sod it, and walked past it. Content and happy with our adventures, we chilled out around the front to see how much of the main building had gone and took some pictures, expecting to have 20 minutes or so before security turned up but, nothing. Chilled out for a bit and had a brisk stroll off the premises with no authority or dogs to be seen!
SUMMARY:
Wasn't going to write up a report on this one but thought it would be nice to get another one up for time period sake and document the deterioration since the two reports I've seen here from December last year and May of this year! Anyway, enough of my noise, time for some pictures!
