If everyone stuck to the known locations, the dead certs, or waited for someone else to turn up the next
location to grace the UE circuit, then UE would quickly become pretty stale. The flipside of that is to
research, hunt out and investigate new locations, so when so much time is invested in that search, a day
of knock-backs sure sucks.
We had seven targets in all for the day, within a thirty mile radius. The plan was not to get around all
of them, simply to go through them in the pre-planned order until we came across one that we wanted to
see more of and then stick with that one. There's nothing to be gained from cramming too much into one
day, one good location is all we were looking for to explore, not spend thirty minutes at
seven different locations.
Our first port of call, St. Mary's Hospital, was built in the early 1930's and so we were unsure what to expect of it
architecturally. We were less than blown away by what we saw, the only exterior with any real
flourish was the Admin block and even that was below par. We thought perhaps the interiors
could redeem St. Mary's? A quick look around found us an easy access point. As we turned a
corner I hadn't even had a chance to take my camera back out of my pocket when we heard
voices. Down the far end of the corridor a camera crew with lighting rigs and associated
apparatus were set up and clearly in full swing. We back tracked out,
it was still early, we had six more targets and being not particularly impressed
with St. Mary's we decided to move on.
The less said about target number two the better, a school in Aylesbury, reported to be derelict,
it wasn't! Target number three was more interesting, a dis-used grain store and a fairly large
scale building. As we approached all looked promising, trees growing out the roof and walls
and smashed windows! But once up close the story changed, the store was surrounded by a few
small businesses. That alone was not a deterrent, we continued our approach under the usual
hi-vis guise. Only when close enough to look in through ground floor windows did I hearts
sink. The entire ground floor was used as storage space by the adjacent cash & carry and
as a result was securely locked down. Even if it weren't locked we couldn't be bothered
with the potential hassle of being accused of robbing from the cash & carry, so again
we moved on, feeling a little deflated.
Green St. School was our fourth potential explore. A small Victorian school of three buildings,
a Boys side, a central Hall and a Girls side, built in 1892. A modern and active community
centre also occupies the same site, but again this activity on site was not a worry.
The real problem with Green St. was its chav infested surroundings, which have forced
the schools owners to employ some impenetrable security measures. Reminiscent of
security seen only at the most special of locations, e.g Severalls Hospital
Chapel, it was certainly not a turn up and walk in location. By now we were
feeling pretty beaten by these four sites, but with three more school
locations to go one of them could still rescue the day for us. We headed back to
the car still hopeful of success.
Our final three School sites were at various stages of re-development. Bellfield
was a nice pile of rubble, Downley was a nicely cleared site with just foundations
remaining and Cedars was an all but complete housing development! LOL! You've
gotta laugh haven't you? Education is clearly not a priority here.
With images of developers hoarding and show homes flanked by flagpoles still
playing through our heads we started the journey home. The day had been long
and although we had been denied at every turn we still felt some accomplishment
in having located and confirmed the status of all seven sites. A day distinctly
lacking in any real exploration will only make our next successful exploration
all the more sweet!
