Apologies for the lack of externals, I normally take them on the way out, but as we got busted I kinda forgot!
No real info on the place, it was an old religious hospital, so there were still beds / various bits of medical paraphinallia, as well as beautiful chapels. Visited on a lovely summers day with Osfa, UrbexDad, JC101, and Priority 7.
Typical room:
The paperwork had been unceremoniously piled into one room, there was literally tonnes of it:
Old paperwork:
Up to the roofspace:
Oooh, a cool tower:
Haddy…hup! Eeew, pigeon poop central!
Another cool bit of light in the roof:
The Chapel:
Alter:
Confession:
Ceiling:
All was going well, we’d finished our shots and was just about to pack up our gear and leave. Osfa came down the stairs and whispered that he’d seen the Police outside, and that maybe we should go upstairs and just wait them out.
Suddenly, our dark silent world then became full of bright torches scanning the room, and shouting in French. Blinded by the light, I noticed that the torch closest to my face was attached to a handgun. The shouting continued, but to no result, they just kept shouting “Francais!” and we just kept replying “English?”
Despite the language barrier there was enough of them to organise us all into a stress position against the cold basement wall. Its at these moments, hundreds of miles from home, in the dark basement of an abandoned hospital, with a loaded gun pointing at your head, you begin to wonder “Should I have just taken up badminton instead?”
After a heated exchange of crackling radio messages (all in French) we could hear someone bumbling through our access point. The chief had arrived. He spoke fantastic English, was polite, and you could tell he was very well educated. His torch shone along the row of five SLRs all on tripods, and he told us to stand at ease, he was clearly embarrassed by the situation that his boys had put us in. (At this point without wanting to push my luck, I managed to flick my camera onto video mode, and hit ‘record’.)
He knew exactly what we were doing, but didn’t quite understand why? Luckily we were next to the entrance to the main chapel, and he stuck his head through the access. We were then all treated to a “Whooaaa” before he decided to force himself through the access for a better look “Zis is bootiful!”.
Anyway, he escorted us to the car, complimented us on the car and me on my camera (I told you he was educated), we all shook hands and we were on our way!
Thanks for reading. Video coming soon.
No real info on the place, it was an old religious hospital, so there were still beds / various bits of medical paraphinallia, as well as beautiful chapels. Visited on a lovely summers day with Osfa, UrbexDad, JC101, and Priority 7.
Typical room:
The paperwork had been unceremoniously piled into one room, there was literally tonnes of it:
Old paperwork:
Up to the roofspace:
Oooh, a cool tower:
Haddy…hup! Eeew, pigeon poop central!
Another cool bit of light in the roof:
The Chapel:
Alter:
Confession:
Ceiling:
All was going well, we’d finished our shots and was just about to pack up our gear and leave. Osfa came down the stairs and whispered that he’d seen the Police outside, and that maybe we should go upstairs and just wait them out.
Suddenly, our dark silent world then became full of bright torches scanning the room, and shouting in French. Blinded by the light, I noticed that the torch closest to my face was attached to a handgun. The shouting continued, but to no result, they just kept shouting “Francais!” and we just kept replying “English?”
Despite the language barrier there was enough of them to organise us all into a stress position against the cold basement wall. Its at these moments, hundreds of miles from home, in the dark basement of an abandoned hospital, with a loaded gun pointing at your head, you begin to wonder “Should I have just taken up badminton instead?”
After a heated exchange of crackling radio messages (all in French) we could hear someone bumbling through our access point. The chief had arrived. He spoke fantastic English, was polite, and you could tell he was very well educated. His torch shone along the row of five SLRs all on tripods, and he told us to stand at ease, he was clearly embarrassed by the situation that his boys had put us in. (At this point without wanting to push my luck, I managed to flick my camera onto video mode, and hit ‘record’.)
He knew exactly what we were doing, but didn’t quite understand why? Luckily we were next to the entrance to the main chapel, and he stuck his head through the access. We were then all treated to a “Whooaaa” before he decided to force himself through the access for a better look “Zis is bootiful!”.
Anyway, he escorted us to the car, complimented us on the car and me on my camera (I told you he was educated), we all shook hands and we were on our way!
Thanks for reading. Video coming soon.
