Higher Elementary School
We first noticed this place in early 2018. I have no idea what we were doing in Blackburn, probably passing through to Burnley, which shares the same levels of Northern grime. The fresh boards were a welcome sign and a quick scan on the forums showed us that the property hadn't been done prior, but we looked at every single window, and there was nothing doing. In the next year or so, we revisited the site 5-6 times, each time noticing the progressing points of deterioration externally, but still no change on the access front. Finally, a couple months back, we were back again and checking the usual potentials for an entry. On a wet day, after a few slips and close shaves, we were eventually inside.
The main reason we became fairly obsessed with the property occurred when we looked a bit deeper into the school online. Permission was granted to erect a building on the land in 1908, and the educational building with a swimming baths in it's basement was opened in 1911. From the outside, you would find it hard to work out the location of a swimming baths because it seemed to have been modernised over the years, however, the next line of history intrigued us massively. The baths were in use until the 1990s before Blackburn College occupied the building, with the pool left inside underneath a false floor. Promising signs for the remains of some early 1900s era baths enticed us to continue recce'ing the site, until the miserable day in November when me and a friend began our search inside for this hidden pool.
Blackburn College used the building for the Care, Health and Public Service division of their unit until at least 2010, but we believe the building was last used in 2015, which is when it was put up for sale, beside these interior shots. I decided to report it in this section of the forum after asking around, but mainly due to the paperwork remaining, as I'll explain later.
Outside the school, the old signage indicating what each area was during it's time as a school, before occupation by the college.
Starting our coverage on the top floor, a brief scout shows that there isn't a massive amount of items or furniture remaining, it is noticeably modern, with the purple and white colour scheme. However, there is decent natural decay with no signs of vandalism expect for a few rooms that appear to have had features scrapped, with wires hanging from the ceiling. There was an old plaque that I swear I photographed too, from the early 1900s, but I have lost the image... We can also hear the sound of a generator, but no upstairs lights function.
Lecture hall
Around the corner we enter an interesting room, which seems to have maintained the building's original architecture. It sucks about the modern partition walls but I've seen places hide their decor in worse ways.
Classwork remaining in one of the rooms, relating to the health care lessons that would be taught.
Student's handprints on the windows in the same room. The structure shares a courtyard with Blackburn's courthouse, which became a bug during our past attempts to access the place, as police were frequently moving by us.
Heading downstairs, the boards make most rooms dark, but the power works from the second floor downwards.
We were wondering why the power was on, until a sudden screech filled the air. The lower floors are belled up, so we made a hasty retreat to the top floor, trying to see from a perch who would come or whether any one would. In about five minutes, a chap turned up, entering the building to switch the alarms off. We're pretty sure we heard him mooching around the lower floor, looking for intruders but not intensely, as he soon left. Now with the knowledge of the security on the site, we were able to manoeuvre the protected regions discreetly, and dodge a few alarms for a while. However, we set it off two more times following, and the same scenario happened again. Funnily enough, the man that came to turn them off seemed to be less bothered the second and third time round, and simply walked in, pulled the switch and turned around, without checking at all.
It's not a surprise that the bottom floors are alarmed, due to the extensive amount of paper work left inside. The most recent we found was the 2015-16 season before the college neglected the premises, but the oldest we found was the mid 90s. At a first glance, I thought that the college must be storing it's papers in the disused building, but there are various spots that have clearly been ransacked and moved about. Furthermore, none of the paperwork shows dates past 2017, and that is just the year that the information should be thrown by. In the case of the law, I figured this should go in Non-public because of the legality of looking through these papers, from recent years.
With the alarms going again, we didn't have too much time to look through each, individual box however much we wanted to. Deciding to venture down to the basement in the search of the desired pool, we had a short look over the rest of the floor. There was a lot more furniture but not in natural positions, more so in a storage situation. The rooms themselves were modernised to the point that didn't intrigue me at all, so we began scouring for the pool.
At the time, we had no specific area where the baths were located because we hadn't discovered the floor plan. Therefore, we were checking each and every basement room looking for anything that might signify a nearby pool, like piping or tiles. I had a hunch that it would be underneath the arched ceiling on the top floor, which appeared to be the oldest part of the whole site. In one classroom, we thought to have sighted the outline of a trapdoor beneath a clump of chairs. We were right - moving the furniture out the way and lifting the trapdoor, we saw stairs down to a dusty tiled floor.
The tiling was simple but still nice to see. Hopefully the protection of the pool could result in it's use again if something happens to the property.
Thanks for reading
We first noticed this place in early 2018. I have no idea what we were doing in Blackburn, probably passing through to Burnley, which shares the same levels of Northern grime. The fresh boards were a welcome sign and a quick scan on the forums showed us that the property hadn't been done prior, but we looked at every single window, and there was nothing doing. In the next year or so, we revisited the site 5-6 times, each time noticing the progressing points of deterioration externally, but still no change on the access front. Finally, a couple months back, we were back again and checking the usual potentials for an entry. On a wet day, after a few slips and close shaves, we were eventually inside.
The main reason we became fairly obsessed with the property occurred when we looked a bit deeper into the school online. Permission was granted to erect a building on the land in 1908, and the educational building with a swimming baths in it's basement was opened in 1911. From the outside, you would find it hard to work out the location of a swimming baths because it seemed to have been modernised over the years, however, the next line of history intrigued us massively. The baths were in use until the 1990s before Blackburn College occupied the building, with the pool left inside underneath a false floor. Promising signs for the remains of some early 1900s era baths enticed us to continue recce'ing the site, until the miserable day in November when me and a friend began our search inside for this hidden pool.
Blackburn College used the building for the Care, Health and Public Service division of their unit until at least 2010, but we believe the building was last used in 2015, which is when it was put up for sale, beside these interior shots. I decided to report it in this section of the forum after asking around, but mainly due to the paperwork remaining, as I'll explain later.
Outside the school, the old signage indicating what each area was during it's time as a school, before occupation by the college.
Starting our coverage on the top floor, a brief scout shows that there isn't a massive amount of items or furniture remaining, it is noticeably modern, with the purple and white colour scheme. However, there is decent natural decay with no signs of vandalism expect for a few rooms that appear to have had features scrapped, with wires hanging from the ceiling. There was an old plaque that I swear I photographed too, from the early 1900s, but I have lost the image... We can also hear the sound of a generator, but no upstairs lights function.
Lecture hall
Around the corner we enter an interesting room, which seems to have maintained the building's original architecture. It sucks about the modern partition walls but I've seen places hide their decor in worse ways.
Classwork remaining in one of the rooms, relating to the health care lessons that would be taught.
Student's handprints on the windows in the same room. The structure shares a courtyard with Blackburn's courthouse, which became a bug during our past attempts to access the place, as police were frequently moving by us.
Heading downstairs, the boards make most rooms dark, but the power works from the second floor downwards.
We were wondering why the power was on, until a sudden screech filled the air. The lower floors are belled up, so we made a hasty retreat to the top floor, trying to see from a perch who would come or whether any one would. In about five minutes, a chap turned up, entering the building to switch the alarms off. We're pretty sure we heard him mooching around the lower floor, looking for intruders but not intensely, as he soon left. Now with the knowledge of the security on the site, we were able to manoeuvre the protected regions discreetly, and dodge a few alarms for a while. However, we set it off two more times following, and the same scenario happened again. Funnily enough, the man that came to turn them off seemed to be less bothered the second and third time round, and simply walked in, pulled the switch and turned around, without checking at all.
It's not a surprise that the bottom floors are alarmed, due to the extensive amount of paper work left inside. The most recent we found was the 2015-16 season before the college neglected the premises, but the oldest we found was the mid 90s. At a first glance, I thought that the college must be storing it's papers in the disused building, but there are various spots that have clearly been ransacked and moved about. Furthermore, none of the paperwork shows dates past 2017, and that is just the year that the information should be thrown by. In the case of the law, I figured this should go in Non-public because of the legality of looking through these papers, from recent years.
With the alarms going again, we didn't have too much time to look through each, individual box however much we wanted to. Deciding to venture down to the basement in the search of the desired pool, we had a short look over the rest of the floor. There was a lot more furniture but not in natural positions, more so in a storage situation. The rooms themselves were modernised to the point that didn't intrigue me at all, so we began scouring for the pool.
At the time, we had no specific area where the baths were located because we hadn't discovered the floor plan. Therefore, we were checking each and every basement room looking for anything that might signify a nearby pool, like piping or tiles. I had a hunch that it would be underneath the arched ceiling on the top floor, which appeared to be the oldest part of the whole site. In one classroom, we thought to have sighted the outline of a trapdoor beneath a clump of chairs. We were right - moving the furniture out the way and lifting the trapdoor, we saw stairs down to a dusty tiled floor.
The tiling was simple but still nice to see. Hopefully the protection of the pool could result in it's use again if something happens to the property.
Thanks for reading
