Passmores School/Academy, Harlow - August 2017

Thought I'd share my experience with the old Passmores Academy in Harlow, a site which as far as I can tell hasn't been photographed from the inside since 2012, a year after closure (Unless I'm just not looking hard enough).

Brief History: Passmores became somewhat famous as the School where the Channel 4 documentary series Educating Essex was filmed. After filming for the show finished in 2011, the building was closed, and a new school was built approx. a mile away from the former site, with the name changing from "Passmores School and Technology College" to simply "Passmores Academy". Since then, the old site has remained here mostly untouched and completely boarded up. In 2014, the site hit the news after becoming a prime location for Travellers, causing all the playgrounds and concrete surfaces to be dug up to prevent caravans from parking on the site shortly after.

Looking around: This place was a pain to get inside. Me and some friends have been trying since December 2016 to find a way in without breaking anything or getting ourselves into trouble, and up until recently, it's been near impossible. Security on the site is as high as it can be without physically having people patrol the site like they used to. Every time even the smallest hole was made by somebody, it would be patched up within a day or two, no hesitation.

Around the site there are "smart tower" cameras that watch and track your movements if you set off their sensors. Several times we've heard their "detected on site" audio message played to innocent dog walkers passing by the site, completely unaware of what's happening.

After many months of searching on multiple occasions, we finally found a way inside. After getting in and double checking no security or cameras had seen us, we started to have a look around. We were quick to get in and out, after setting off an alarm on one of the floors (We concluded this alarm wasn't anything serious, due to it's quiet nature and the fact it switched itself off after about a minute, but still wanted to be quick looking around just in case)

Here are the few photos I got, and a couple of video screenshots.

A view from outside:


Inside the middle "quad" area:




Hall, presumably for assemblies/lunch:


Classroom on the second floor:


Classroom on the third floor:


Also on the third floor, what I assume is a food tech/catering room:


Third floor again, from the looks of it, a computer suite:


(There was one more room next to this one completely overrun by pigeons that I couldn't look in. Opened the door a tiny bit and the nastiest warm smell hit me. The floor was covered in pigeon shit, all over. It's quite strange, considering how every other room we'd been in was so clean and still had nice smells of an old wooden school in the air, without a hint of mould or anything nasty)

Hallway, ground floor. About a second after taking this in a video, we set off the alarm. Whoops.


Art room, second floor. We found the can of spray paint on the floor, turns out it didn't work much:


Opposite view of the same room before we figured out the lights turn on:

Looks a nice mooch..i hope your mate was not going to try spray the walls to find the can empty well done in persevering and finally getting in when the time was right

...he found it sitting there on the floor in that little cupboard room to the right, from watching back the video from the gopro he had on, sure he was just testing it out on whatever surface. Shook it a bit, tried it flat on a box for some Aladdin toy/game sitting on the sink, then the wall. Empty. Spraying anything isn't the thing we go in to do (obviously), although there was already quite a bit of writing clearly from that can on the walls, including a swaztika, which is typical. Same goes for a bottle of glue found in the cupboard. Tried shaking it out, nothing. There was some nasty carton of milk with visible amounts of liquid still inside it in there too.

Glad it eventually paid off for you guys then! Boarded up 3rd floor windows is rather excessive, Im surprised they didn't board up the ponds too. I can't believe that Educating Essex was filmed in 2011...I think I've been a sleep too long!

Excessive is the only word to describe it, yep. The security on this place is insanely high, like I said. They've even boarded and bolted tiny holes on the roof, some of which are as small as about 20cm squared, which you couldn't even fit one leg down.

Looks an enjoyable nose, well photographed, Thanks

Mad to see some of my old classrooms.
Also have been trying to get in for a long time. All but gave up hope last year. Glad to see someone made it.
Well done!