Hmm, so many kinds of worst: wettest, dirtiest, scariest, underwhelming, disappointing. Here are a couple of the latter. Apologies for dramatic reminiscing about the old days.
ABC Cinema in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent This was in 2007, and the ABC is long gone so I think the statute of limitations has passed on describing access. A smallish, high street cinema with offices on one side and a casino in the basement.
For a while back then there were periods of reports on similar locations. For example, when the asylums closed everybody was doing hospitals. There was ‘Year of the Boat’. Along came the rise of the multi-plex and everybody was doing cinemas. This was ‘Year of the Cinema’. The ABC was due for demolition. As far as I know there were (and still are) no other reports. Access was ‘impossible’. We had to crack it.
The cinema itself had no ground floor windows, and all doors were sealed shut. The casino, we assumed, would be connected to the cinema on the inside. So, getting into the casino would get us into the cinema. We discovered that the casino had a broken vent cover. Yes, an actual air vent that we would crawl along, like in the movies, and magically drop into the vault.
I (probably) wouldn’t do this nowadays, but being young and reckless we got on all fours and ventured into the unknown. It was tight, hot, and extremely dusty. (And so was the vent). We had absolutely no idea what we were doing. It got smaller and I was considering sliding back out, but then appeared a ‘plate’ on the floor. We lifted it and were delighted to find ourselves about two metres off the ground in a small room. Luckily over some fixed shelves so we could climb down from the pipe, and more importantly get back out again.
Finally, the anti-climax to our adventure! A trashed room with sticky carpet and broken glitter ball. No casino goodness, no access to the ABC.
Several attempts later we made it though, and it was worth it.
Wahooooooo, done it at last!!! Visited for the second time this week with Alley and Jimbob. Fourth time lucky at trying to get into this place. :D The ABC cinema in Hanley opened as a cinema and bowling alley in 1963. It was later divided into three smaller screens in 1977. The cinema...
www.28dayslater.co.uk
Woodford Aerodrome, Cheshire @FreshFingers, SoundLightGo, and I visited towards the tail end of demo/deconstruction so we didn’t expect to see a great deal. However, when it came to it, we actually got to see even less than expected. We knew there was a security patrol so we decided darkness was the first requirement for this trip. Looking back, it’s not – how do you light up for photos? Whatever, we got there late in the evening; FF and I had cameras and tripods. SLG carried an umbrella. The long kind, not a pocket-size. It wasn’t even raining.
We found a discreet hole in the fence which someone had kindly mentioned to us. Skirted a building then made our way down the runway. It was a huge site. We were hundreds of yards from the buildings so when we saw the flicker of torchlight in the distance, it wasn’t a big deal. We were in the dark, loitering around the tower, taking long exposure pics. Laughing and joking, quietly of course.
We watched as the torch-wielder made his way to the perimeter fence. Walked up and down. Stopped at our hole. Stayed there a long time, presumably fixing the hole.. or waiting for us.
Ok, that’s fine, we will leave by another route. We just need to make it to the fence. From the middle of the airfield, with barely any cover. No worries, he won’t see us from this far away in the dark. Then he swung the torch around, and goddammit if the beam wasn’t a hundred yards long, and a million lumens. I mean, where do you even get a torch like that?
In between sweeps of illumination from the human watchtower, we dashed from bin to shed to barrel until we ran out of cover. All we had left was unmowed grass. We threw ourselves to the ground and started slithering.
As the distant grass glowed bright white again, I pressed my face to the ground to avoid the beam of light. And then it started to rain – you know that light drizzle that gets you really wet? SLG opened his umbrella and lay underneath it, just millimetres below the tips of the blades of grass. We soaked for what seemed a very long time.
The light of danger passed, and we dashed the final yards to the fence, under cover of a tree. Now, for some reason (either it was an unclimbable, greasy monster of a ten foot fence; or we were scared of being seen, or one of us was incapable of climbing even a six foot fence – who can say… the reason is lost to the mists of time. I will let you make up your own mind) we ended up digging our way out. Fingers in the mud, scrabbling before he came back to make a shallow pit to slide through.
So, disappointing in one way, but kinda fun too. I managed to get a couple of rubbish pics.
