I have always been interested in abandoned man made structures, and if these structures are linked to railways, so much the better. I have also been intrigued by old abandoned Victorian/Edwardian buildings. This stems from the time that I lived in Virginia Water in the mid 80’ opposite the then derelict Holloway Sanatorium. Not only was there this huge gothic mausoleum, which had many stories of ill deeds and nasty doings attached to it but also a number of associated buildings that I /we used to explore, including a large abandoned open air swimming pool.
Imagine my surprise to discover that I was an Urbex before the term urbex had been coined. An Urbex is, apparently a post modernist rambler who is tired of the rural scene.
The leading website states ‘as rural exploration can roughly divided into rambling, rock climbing and caving, the urban exploration scene applies these pursuits to man made structures resulting in the sub genres of infiltration, buildering(?) and tunnelling.
It would seem that one of most popular sites for infiltration is……..old abandoned asylums! (Hey kids I was doing this 25 years ago.)
Anyway I thought that we could run a post modernist Lakes next year, forget all that climbing up Scarfell Ring and Cisbury Pike, let’s go Urbexing, all we need to do is get a list of sites and away we go.
Here is one that I will be checking out in the next couple of weeks. It is the Old Warden Railway Tunnel, on the disused line between Bedford and Hitchin. To give it more kudos it is all so the site where in the film Those Magnificent Men and their Flying Machines, Terry Thomas lands on the top of the steam train and ends up hitting the tunnel portal.
If you know of any other Urbexing sites that are worth consideration..Post them now.
Posted on Aug 9, 2008, 3:00 PM from IP address 81.105.7.171