Report - Hellingly Hospital 16/11/09

[mookster]

Today didn't get off to the best of starts - the cash machine in Guildford Railway station ate my card and my exploring buddy for the day Flubbera87 was seriously delayed by traffic, but we eventually made our way over to Hellingly for one last trip round the place as I really wanted to see the stuff I didn't have a chance to see earlier this year.

The way in was, how shall I put it....sharp...me and Flubbera must have got stabbed thousands of times by brambles, and on the way out it was worse as he ended up stuck in a hole whilst I grabbed a branch that then broke plunging my hand into a whole load of brambles and then a tree stump got rather intimate with my ankle, we did have a good laugh about it though as it was rather funny

This trip to Hellingly was one of my favourite explores I've been on so far, everything about it was just spot on, the asylum itself was seemingly alive with the recent rainwater pouring off roofs, the wind literally howling down corridors and through the many broken/missing windows and most exciting of all the sounds of excavators and bulldozers just outside accompanying us for much of the explore which was an extra thrill. The near-miss with security also provided us an extra something.

Here's a little snippet of history as I'm sure most people know the story by now

Sitting on top of a hill overlooking the East Sussex Countryside sits the battered remains of Hellingly hospital, Formerly Hellingly Asylum. Hellingly is a prime example of the "splendid isolation" design philosophy that is present in the design of many institutional buildings of this era.

Hellingly was designed by architect GT Hine and built to a late Victorian design during a period of massive expansion for mental health facilities in Britain. Hellingly First opened its doors to patients in 1903 and continued to serve the local community for almost the next 90 years. As with so many other asylums a change in policy on the treatment of many patients meant closure of the majority of buildings in 1994.

The Hospital today has suffered over 10 years of neglect badly, arson has destroyed several buildings most notably the administration block. Vandals have been systematically removing all the windows, the easier to access ground floor areas have received the brunt of these attacks.

I've tried to avoid the cliched Hellingly shots (apart from the obvious...)in this report and hopefully have brought something new-ish

First port of call was of course the main hall


The rest of my pics will be on Flickr at some point

fergodssake stupid photobucket.

*edit* here are the pics for those who haven't seen them, I don't know if a mod could edit my original post to get rid of the dead photobucket links and put the ones off Flickr there instead?

First port of call was of course the main hall

Then it was time for a leisurely tromp through the rest of the asylum

we had fun teasing these pigeons:

and lastly a parting shot over the site...