Question - Superior rooms

[Olkka]

Another ask-the-scene post prompted by a stray thought that passed through my scatterbrain.

Surprisingly more often than not when pursuing this hobby, I find myself in one particular room within a much larger indoor complex that absolutely steals the show. It's almost as if this one small corner of a vaster building arguably grants more of a bouquet to one's curiosity than the whole rest of the place. Anyone know what I mean?

Sutton hospital B block, for example, is an Edwardian building filled with monotone decor and elementary furniture. Kinda cool but nothing that leaves you thinking wow what a special site when climbing your way out. Except for one room: some kind of mini paediatric ward or nursery, with floor to ceiling wallpaper of childrens' book characters, plus some stray medical equipment and heaps of paperwork. It really changes the entire experience of the place and unlocks a sort of upper echelon of hype about what you came to see and what you found.

Am I not alone in finding this to be the case about somewhere every now and then?

Seeing as I've not yet made it to the Buran-Energia hangars at Baikonur (woe is me), this one room > everything else phenomenon was never more the case at Ushaw Seminary. Ushaw is one of my favourite complexes in Britain for its rural, 70s institutional vibe that just reeks of authentic North-East bygone community. I loved all of it, really did, but when we arrived at its bathhouse, the whole mood of the derp just switched gears. I was very romantically invested in that room, and spent as long in it as the rest of the seminary. The rest of the seminary is indeed quite badly vandalised and rotted, but the bathhouse was not at all - the design of it also starkly reminded me heavily of an old-school swimming pool I used to swim in back in primary school with ice cold water, I hadn't seen a pool like it since. Skylights, arrangement of old tat in the water, echo acoustics, white beams, seclusion, light rain on the roof... all bangin', couldn't get enough. We had a picnic there, played cards for about an hour and got solidly wavy whilst marvelling at all the gold this one damn room was offering. Elevated the hype of Ushaw for us from an 8/10 to a 9.5/10 easily. I'm sure there are countless other rooms within larger complexes that have the power to do this to a visitor.

QUESTION IS, what is the scene's experience with such rooms? Please share as many thoughts and stories and pictures as you want.

Some bathhouse highlights meanwhile;

https://coub.com/view/13db0u

https://coub.com/view/zgh76



Safe boys

 

[ollybennett]

I’ve been to sutton hospital a million times never noticed this though where’s it at on the site bro

 

[Olkka]

The children's room is (was) in the B block of the old part of the hospital, not in the Chiltern Wing. All demolished in the last couple of weeks though.

 

[mookster]

I’ve been to sutton hospital a million times never noticed this though where’s it at on the site bro

If you read the thread fully this pool is in Ushaw Seminary.

A good example of the one room type place is the Prudential Assurance building in Oldham. Hundreds of stripped bare boring rooms then those incredible tiled areas at the front.

My personal favourite example that sticks out to me from my experiences was Overbrook Asylum in New Jersey. What you had was a huge, impressive asylum filled with pretty much everything you could wish for - fully furnished wards, multiple dental suites, a mortuary, wonderful decay - yet my favourite part was the power plant. A little power station that would have been more fitting inside a vast industrial complex complete with small vintage turbines and a huge bank of switchgear. It had escaped pretty much all modernisation and was almost completely as it was when the asylum was constructed with the only addition being a larger more modern boiler house to replace the small original one.