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Report - - Warwickshire Masonic Temple/Clarendon Suites - Birmingham - October 2018 | Other Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Warwickshire Masonic Temple/Clarendon Suites - Birmingham - October 2018

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Grom

Camera Drowner
Regular User
Possibly one of the ugliest buildings I've stumbled into so far. Designed by John Madin, the brutalist architecture is very distintive.


The History

Designed by locally famous architect John Madin, the Warwickshire Masonic Temple is regarded as a bit of a local landmark.

"Madin was a significant figure of post-war Birmingham architecture. Madin's work has been much neglected and was not highly regarded by the early-21st century political leadership within Birmingham. Clive Dutton, the city's former Director of Planning and Regeneration, described Madin's Central Library as a “concrete monstrosity” (Madin's original plans were for the building to be clad in marble; the city, however, was unwilling to foot the bill so a concrete finish was used instead). A replacement, The Library of Birmingham was opened on 3 September 2013 in Centenary Square, which resulted in the previous building being demolished, starting early in 2015."

The Conference centre come Masonic temple was built in around 1970/1971 and was finally closed in 2014 when the building was put up for sale. The Warwickshire Masonic Brethren who used the site until its closure moved to a different site in Birmingham.

The site is now earmarked for demolition.


The Explore

Me and @Brewtal spent a day in Brum exploring the sights and ended up here after a bit of a fail somewhere else. Not knowing too much about here other than seeing @slayaaaa 's report, we didn't know if it was still doable or even worth the effort. We had a bit of a head scratch moment were we wondered whether we could even get past the hoarding unnoticed, but we devised a plan and before we knew it, we were inside, no drama!

Now this is hardly the greatest explore Birmingham has to offer, but inside had some pretty interesting architecture. Of course there's no hiding the fact that the building has been trashed and stripped by the copper fairies, it's really not in a good way. It is surprisingly big and a bit of a maze with back corridors galore. The weird thing is the lack of windows, it feels a bit like a fortress with hardly any natural light other than a few big skylights in the main foyer area.


The Photos

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Brewtal

28DL Regular User
Regular User
That was a fun day out despite this and the first place being dull. The tunnels more than made up for it though! You got some great pics mate!
 

slayaaaa

Moderator
Moderator
Ugly! No no no :D

Nice report man, good to see it again! Would have thought it'd been flattened by now if I'm honest.
 

The_Raw

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Some pukka pics there mate. Looks like a decent party venue, ermm I mean umbex mooch spot, sorry ;)
 

Polominto73

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Did you remember to roll ure trousers up+ give secret handshake good pictures there matey nicely done
 

Xplorography

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Considering I heard they were meant to be cleaning this place up I'm guessing the plans fell through
 

Luke vaughan

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Still here wtf I went 3 months or so ago and cos of a scrap metal guy illegally getting parts off the roof the police came and demolition crew and the manager came so I thought this place had been demod seeing as how quick they turned up to the site once we was seen there
 

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