South Lodge Hotel – Chelmsford – August 2015
The history
South Lodge Hotel is a Victorian built 35 room hotel located in Chelmsford not too far from the town centre. The plain rooms featured en suite bathrooms, flat-screen TVs and free WiFi, as well as tea and coffee making equipment. Some of the rooms also had 4-poster beds.
There was also an a la carte restaurant serving Modern British cuisine on-site, and a bar offering more traditional dishes. Other amenities included 2 conference rooms and a function room.
The South Lodge Hotel only closed its doors for good a few weeks ago, but will soon be demolished to make way for a new care home. The owner of the hotel estimated that it would cost around £1 million to bring it back to a decent standard. So after receiving a generous offer from Carebase Ltd who will be opening the new residential home, it made more sense to sell the building rather than pay out a large sum for refurbishment.
This is similar to the housing development on the site of the St John’s Hospital, where the old Victorian building was demolished to make way for a new apartment building. Again, this is another case where it would take a large amount of money just to refurbish such an old run down building, so it makes more sense to knock it down and build something new from scratch.
The explore
An early morning start with this one for myself and @slayaaa this was our first of 8 locations that day.
We had a mooch around, slid the Heras to one side and made our way to the main building. Within minutes we had found an obvious way in and we where away. Slayaaa headed for the beer pumps and to his surprise out came the beer, so he had a drink for brekkie and we quickly checked out the rest of the place.
It was in great condition and remained very untouched. A great little explore and very local for us which was nice J
Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure
The history
South Lodge Hotel is a Victorian built 35 room hotel located in Chelmsford not too far from the town centre. The plain rooms featured en suite bathrooms, flat-screen TVs and free WiFi, as well as tea and coffee making equipment. Some of the rooms also had 4-poster beds.
There was also an a la carte restaurant serving Modern British cuisine on-site, and a bar offering more traditional dishes. Other amenities included 2 conference rooms and a function room.
The South Lodge Hotel only closed its doors for good a few weeks ago, but will soon be demolished to make way for a new care home. The owner of the hotel estimated that it would cost around £1 million to bring it back to a decent standard. So after receiving a generous offer from Carebase Ltd who will be opening the new residential home, it made more sense to sell the building rather than pay out a large sum for refurbishment.
This is similar to the housing development on the site of the St John’s Hospital, where the old Victorian building was demolished to make way for a new apartment building. Again, this is another case where it would take a large amount of money just to refurbish such an old run down building, so it makes more sense to knock it down and build something new from scratch.
The explore
An early morning start with this one for myself and @slayaaa this was our first of 8 locations that day.
We had a mooch around, slid the Heras to one side and made our way to the main building. Within minutes we had found an obvious way in and we where away. Slayaaa headed for the beer pumps and to his surprise out came the beer, so he had a drink for brekkie and we quickly checked out the rest of the place.
It was in great condition and remained very untouched. A great little explore and very local for us which was nice J
Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure
