Hello!
This particular place gives me the feels of nostalgia, as I initially encountered it as a couple of random mini-explores before returning shortly after to assist with a film that was being shot there. Back in 2008 I had purchased a vintage beast of a U-matic tape player from the studios based next door (which was itself a former post office HQ). After the purchase, my friend - Bedwards - and I were intrigued by this cluster of 1900s buildings so we went for a wander. Here they were, unassuming but proud, all crumpled-up but still in their Sunday-best wearing all their high-Victorian terracotta trimmings, despite being marooned in a landscape of no-frills tower-blocks and industrial estates (the tower-block opposite was looking rather dapper and matching the red-theme of the buildings though, all nicely co-ordinated perhaps).
Peeking out shyly from between the former Post Office to its left and some council buildings and the Art Gallery and Museum to its right, the Wednesbury Adult Education Centre was a disused former school - that much was plain from the decidedly stark and modern signage above the door, together with some original stylised "W.S.S" initials carved into the brick above. The door was ajar... that frisson of excitement crept up.... the entrance hall was staring at us through the gloom. So in we went. A quick mooch inside did not disappoint that day and we returned again some weeks later with Bedwards' brand new DSLR. It was still a little bit of a mystery to us and we hadn't quite mastered it's voodoo magic yet, so the pics are a bit reference-like and not very arty, but do capture the place's surprising photogenic potential. We can't now remember who captured what (so we'll sue each other for copyright at some point). As ever, life happened in the following years. I've lost my own original pics but Bedwards (who keeps his hard drive content backed-up as far as the Middle Ages) had these all labelled and readily accessible within ten seconds of my asking about them. I've spruced those up for an outing on here, looked-into the history I could find, added some stills from a short video I made and the film that was shot there later. Two parts to this report - the present-day images, and the historically-related images.
Unfortunately, while excitedly looking-into whether I could return here, it turns out that the building was partially demolished sometime in 2016 - 2017 after the roof caved in and pancaked the floors below. What a waste. Out of all the small and unassuming abandoned buildings I've visited this was one of the prettiest and attractively decayed. However, at the time of exploring it - the whole "peeling-paint-in-Victorian corridors-and-rooms" aesthetic were ten-a-penny due to abandoned asylums and factories still being very much a thing in the UK, and so so we didn't invest as much effort into really capturing the aesthetics of the place or looking into it's history. Now however, this place would have been much more of a rarity and captured better, and also should really have been better cared for given its features and its important place in local education history. Simon Cornwell (from the Cult of Cane Hill website) once surmised that urbex can be a very in-the-moment hobby, and after the rush of an explore, the details of place and the appreciation of it can be lost. It's then taken for granted that of course the place will be around forever. However, they never are. As is the case here.
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The beautiful terracotta exterior (especially popular with Victorian Birmingham buildings), with the council offices and art gallery in the background. And a tower-block in front.
I wonder if the red balconies on the 'block were to provide some style continuity with these red coloured buildings opposite?
Please excuse my appearing in the picture. I was and still am a camera ponce.
.
Inside the entrance looking back at the inner-door to the porch and the front door beyond.
Also pictured, vintage breaker boxes and wiring for the defunct electrical system situated next to/or inside? the office cubicle to the left of the entrance.
.
The large ground floor teaching/workshop room at the end of the short corridor from the hall above.
Note the surprising presence of the elaborate door surrounds. This room wouldn't have looked out of place as a location for hipster fashion shoot. Note the warning tape area...
...now... that cordoned off bit of the floor - those wonky floorboards could be lifted up to access an otherwise locked-up room below. My friend and I were quite critter-sized and were able to squeeze through the joists and into the room below, which yielded this piano and chair, if nothing else. Despite being essentially in what felt like a basement, the land sloped from the front to rear of the building, resulting in this room being at ground-floor level to the road behind the building. This peeling paint made me think of creamy chocolate cake frosting. I got hungry.
.
An upstairs classroom, one of three. Some final information still posted on the board - concerning an "Adult Basic Education Project", local bus routes and staff contact details.
This classroom would later be used for a key scene in the film that would be shot here later, where it would be set-dressed with a bed.
The door to the main road-facing classroom over-looking the front door. Once again, some beautiful features such as the radiators and door surrounds, which contrasts with the offensively blunt installation of that electrical box. The classroom itself was empty except for some tasty peeling paint and the dangling chains from vintage light fixtures, some of which remained. Once again, all very photogenic.
.
Assorted views - an electrical diagram of some machine involving a motor and a gate, possibly a lift? May have been something from next door, as the studios had an old lift. A ground floor door to the locked stairs leading to the piano room probably. A plan of fairly-recent origin detailing the layout of some of the rooms and noting possible steps to renovate - such as removing the industrial amounts of pigeon shit from this room:
The crowning glory of this building, with lots of lovely features and decay... so naturally we only seem to have one photo of it. This room was on the top floor and was another workshop I believe. There were already elements of the forthcoming film shoot, such the deer antlers and other prop-type stuff. I'd end up spending a lot of time up here with the film crew during shooting and it got REALLY cold, as there was no glass in them thar end-windows and missing panes in the skylight. it's this room that precipitated the decay that would eventually cause this whole part of the building to collapse in on itself. If windows be the eyes of the building then the glass stops it blindly stumbling into the abyss.
So that's the tour in terms of an urbex perspective. Below are some stills of a video I made of the place (shot on MiniDV) which I got to make during the shooting of the film, using kit from the marketing unit:
The ground floor entrance hall, with the video camera (on a track) with its back to the porch doors. The corridor into darkness leads to the big workshop room (with the foldable partitions). Judging by this place now on Google maps, the building doesn't continue past the stairs and is blocked off with a car park beyond. The Home Economics door was to the right down the corridor at some point, as well.
Below are some screengrabs from the parts of the film which were shot in this building. It was a challenging shoot, no power in the building so cables had to be fed from the studios next door, and as it was a such a cold winter, the bulbs in the old-fashioned studio lights would blow (no budget for LED lights or kino-flos in these locations) shorting the power, causing frequent delays on set. No-budget conditions on a low-budget production, haha! The half-dressed actors were amazing as they never complained once. Really lovely cast and crew on this. Fond memories, though the end product gained 1 star reviews. It was designed to be a trashy slasher flick according to the director. The film used most of the rooms throughout this building, but I felt it would have best shot in the daytime and had more lingering shots of the interiors to increase the sense of decay and suspense. This is why I love Session 9 so much. That film really lets the location itself shine. This building needed to have a been made more of a character in itself, I thought. So much potential as a location for all sorts of stories and things to be shot there.
Stills from the film:
That first floor classroom again, this bed is at the back of that room. Also, spot the piece of the paper still in-situ on the board....
.
.
The corridor leading to the big room on the top floor. This shot looks from that room back into the corridor and is set dressed for the film with lots of Countdown-style numbers on the walls
The pic on the right is the big room looking towards that door.
The next post following this will be about the history, and I'll hopefully be able to update it as i've made some enquiries and am awaiting potential new info, if it exists.
Thanks for having a ganders so far!
This particular place gives me the feels of nostalgia, as I initially encountered it as a couple of random mini-explores before returning shortly after to assist with a film that was being shot there. Back in 2008 I had purchased a vintage beast of a U-matic tape player from the studios based next door (which was itself a former post office HQ). After the purchase, my friend - Bedwards - and I were intrigued by this cluster of 1900s buildings so we went for a wander. Here they were, unassuming but proud, all crumpled-up but still in their Sunday-best wearing all their high-Victorian terracotta trimmings, despite being marooned in a landscape of no-frills tower-blocks and industrial estates (the tower-block opposite was looking rather dapper and matching the red-theme of the buildings though, all nicely co-ordinated perhaps).
Peeking out shyly from between the former Post Office to its left and some council buildings and the Art Gallery and Museum to its right, the Wednesbury Adult Education Centre was a disused former school - that much was plain from the decidedly stark and modern signage above the door, together with some original stylised "W.S.S" initials carved into the brick above. The door was ajar... that frisson of excitement crept up.... the entrance hall was staring at us through the gloom. So in we went. A quick mooch inside did not disappoint that day and we returned again some weeks later with Bedwards' brand new DSLR. It was still a little bit of a mystery to us and we hadn't quite mastered it's voodoo magic yet, so the pics are a bit reference-like and not very arty, but do capture the place's surprising photogenic potential. We can't now remember who captured what (so we'll sue each other for copyright at some point). As ever, life happened in the following years. I've lost my own original pics but Bedwards (who keeps his hard drive content backed-up as far as the Middle Ages) had these all labelled and readily accessible within ten seconds of my asking about them. I've spruced those up for an outing on here, looked-into the history I could find, added some stills from a short video I made and the film that was shot there later. Two parts to this report - the present-day images, and the historically-related images.
Unfortunately, while excitedly looking-into whether I could return here, it turns out that the building was partially demolished sometime in 2016 - 2017 after the roof caved in and pancaked the floors below. What a waste. Out of all the small and unassuming abandoned buildings I've visited this was one of the prettiest and attractively decayed. However, at the time of exploring it - the whole "peeling-paint-in-Victorian corridors-and-rooms" aesthetic were ten-a-penny due to abandoned asylums and factories still being very much a thing in the UK, and so so we didn't invest as much effort into really capturing the aesthetics of the place or looking into it's history. Now however, this place would have been much more of a rarity and captured better, and also should really have been better cared for given its features and its important place in local education history. Simon Cornwell (from the Cult of Cane Hill website) once surmised that urbex can be a very in-the-moment hobby, and after the rush of an explore, the details of place and the appreciation of it can be lost. It's then taken for granted that of course the place will be around forever. However, they never are. As is the case here.
The beautiful terracotta exterior (especially popular with Victorian Birmingham buildings), with the council offices and art gallery in the background. And a tower-block in front.
I wonder if the red balconies on the 'block were to provide some style continuity with these red coloured buildings opposite?
Please excuse my appearing in the picture. I was and still am a camera ponce.
Inside the entrance looking back at the inner-door to the porch and the front door beyond.
Also pictured, vintage breaker boxes and wiring for the defunct electrical system situated next to/or inside? the office cubicle to the left of the entrance.
The large ground floor teaching/workshop room at the end of the short corridor from the hall above.
Note the surprising presence of the elaborate door surrounds. This room wouldn't have looked out of place as a location for hipster fashion shoot. Note the warning tape area...
...now... that cordoned off bit of the floor - those wonky floorboards could be lifted up to access an otherwise locked-up room below. My friend and I were quite critter-sized and were able to squeeze through the joists and into the room below, which yielded this piano and chair, if nothing else. Despite being essentially in what felt like a basement, the land sloped from the front to rear of the building, resulting in this room being at ground-floor level to the road behind the building. This peeling paint made me think of creamy chocolate cake frosting. I got hungry.
An upstairs classroom, one of three. Some final information still posted on the board - concerning an "Adult Basic Education Project", local bus routes and staff contact details.
This classroom would later be used for a key scene in the film that would be shot here later, where it would be set-dressed with a bed.
The door to the main road-facing classroom over-looking the front door. Once again, some beautiful features such as the radiators and door surrounds, which contrasts with the offensively blunt installation of that electrical box. The classroom itself was empty except for some tasty peeling paint and the dangling chains from vintage light fixtures, some of which remained. Once again, all very photogenic.
Assorted views - an electrical diagram of some machine involving a motor and a gate, possibly a lift? May have been something from next door, as the studios had an old lift. A ground floor door to the locked stairs leading to the piano room probably. A plan of fairly-recent origin detailing the layout of some of the rooms and noting possible steps to renovate - such as removing the industrial amounts of pigeon shit from this room:
The crowning glory of this building, with lots of lovely features and decay... so naturally we only seem to have one photo of it. This room was on the top floor and was another workshop I believe. There were already elements of the forthcoming film shoot, such the deer antlers and other prop-type stuff. I'd end up spending a lot of time up here with the film crew during shooting and it got REALLY cold, as there was no glass in them thar end-windows and missing panes in the skylight. it's this room that precipitated the decay that would eventually cause this whole part of the building to collapse in on itself. If windows be the eyes of the building then the glass stops it blindly stumbling into the abyss.
So that's the tour in terms of an urbex perspective. Below are some stills of a video I made of the place (shot on MiniDV) which I got to make during the shooting of the film, using kit from the marketing unit:
The ground floor entrance hall, with the video camera (on a track) with its back to the porch doors. The corridor into darkness leads to the big workshop room (with the foldable partitions). Judging by this place now on Google maps, the building doesn't continue past the stairs and is blocked off with a car park beyond. The Home Economics door was to the right down the corridor at some point, as well.
Below are some screengrabs from the parts of the film which were shot in this building. It was a challenging shoot, no power in the building so cables had to be fed from the studios next door, and as it was a such a cold winter, the bulbs in the old-fashioned studio lights would blow (no budget for LED lights or kino-flos in these locations) shorting the power, causing frequent delays on set. No-budget conditions on a low-budget production, haha! The half-dressed actors were amazing as they never complained once. Really lovely cast and crew on this. Fond memories, though the end product gained 1 star reviews. It was designed to be a trashy slasher flick according to the director. The film used most of the rooms throughout this building, but I felt it would have best shot in the daytime and had more lingering shots of the interiors to increase the sense of decay and suspense. This is why I love Session 9 so much. That film really lets the location itself shine. This building needed to have a been made more of a character in itself, I thought. So much potential as a location for all sorts of stories and things to be shot there.
Stills from the film:
That first floor classroom again, this bed is at the back of that room. Also, spot the piece of the paper still in-situ on the board....
.
The corridor leading to the big room on the top floor. This shot looks from that room back into the corridor and is set dressed for the film with lots of Countdown-style numbers on the walls
The pic on the right is the big room looking towards that door.The next post following this will be about the history, and I'll hopefully be able to update it as i've made some enquiries and am awaiting potential new info, if it exists.
Thanks for having a ganders so far!
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