Biggest Regrets

[Lhiannan Shee]

Just wondering if you guys have any regrets? You know, like buildings you always wanted/intended to do, and now they're gone and it's too late. With a lot of places that are now gone, other people have gone before, took and posted pictures, so it's not so bad. Obviously not close to seeing it for yourself, but better than nothing. But there's some places that nobody seems to have been in, and you can only imagine how they were inside. Do you guys have any of these?

The main one for me would be Atholl Street Courthouse, the old courts on the Isle of Man. I'd planned to do it for so long, and when I finally did get round to it, it was too late and they'd begun demolishing it. They've kept the front wall, and the rest was knocked down. It's now a posh restaurant/nightclub.

Very old picture I took before the demolition in 2006:

 

[Priority 7]

Potters Manor for me I put off a trip two weeks earlier and ended up seeing it after the little scrotes had destroyed the staircase and banister railing

 

[mookster]

Cane Hill

Got into this lark about 6 months too late to see Cane Hill properly or at least when it was worth doing during demo, saw the outside of it from the fence in mid-2009 but that was it

 

[jjandellis]

missed the boat to hellingly ............... gutted ..... still need to do a big asylum before they are all gone

 

[mookster]

missed the boat to hellingly ............... gutted ..... still need to do a big asylum before they are all gone

I'm so glad I saw Hellingly albeit only twice, everybody loved it and now it's almost all gone, pretty soon there will be not a trace left of it

 

[krela]

My biggest regret is not being old enough to do this in the 70s and 80s when all the really good stuff was around...

 

[ricasso]

GCHQ in Cheltenham before they ripped out all the wartime buildings to build the 'Doughnut' (although security was still watertight even when empty!)

 

[dangerous dave]

My biggest regret is not being old enough to do this in the 70s and 80s when all the really good stuff was around...

same id love to have been about then i can remember soo much growing up that was just abandoned kinda start of the 90es to mid 2000 time before all the clean ups n renovations and that jazz

 

[Goldie87]

Got way too many to list. One of the main ones I think was the ABC cinema in Leicester, don't even know why some of us never got round to getting in there

 

[ricasso]

My biggest regret is not being old enough to do this in the 70s and 80s when all the really good stuff was around...

i remember living in woolwich, london in 1980/81 and the old arsenal was still there,(just) also the docks were completley empty of ships and people, before the developers moved in, you could go anywhere!

 

[krela]

i remember living in woolwich, london in 1980/81 and the old arsenal was still there,(just) also the docks were completley empty of ships and people, before the developers moved in, you could go anywhere!

Oh I know, so much of our industrial heritage laying empty, and no health and safety laws or security to worry about! I'm only really interested in heavy industry and there's so little of it left now.

 

[Derelict-UK]

Not exactly an explore, but I wish I had photographed more of the regeneration of Birmingham's City Centre/Bullring and the surrounding roads when I first got here in 2002.

 

[kathyms]

age

i was born in the 40s not long after the war. i lived in a village befor the new box shape houses were built by the hundred. i wish as i grew up i could have taken pics of the cottages and old shops that have long gone. they are in my head but now all that is left is car sales large shops and new err modern houses. those old cottages that were every were , in every town in the uk. large families lived in one or two up and one or two down. but they were happy. families were closer and you knew your neighboughs. all gone.

My biggest regret is not being old enough to do this in the 70s and 80s when all the really good stuff was around...

 

[ricasso]

Oh I know, so much of our industrial heritage laying empty, and no health and safety laws or security to worry about! I'm only really interested in heavy industry and there's so little of it left now.

now thats not entirely true is it young fella! if I remember correctly you have a soft spot,( and comprehensive knowledge) of military,airfields and HAA site's spring to mind!

 

[krela]

now thats not entirely true is it young fella! if I remember correctly you have a soft spot,( and comprehensive knowledge) of military,airfields and HAA site's spring to mind!

I do, but they're still around and I've seen almost everything I want to see.

 

[smiler]

i was born in the 40s not long after the war. i lived in a village befor the new box shape houses were built by the hundred. i wish as i grew up i could have taken pics of the cottages and old shops that have long gone. they are in my head but now all that is left is car sales large shops and new err modern houses. those old cottages that were every were , in every town in the uk. large families lived in one or two up and one or two down. but they were happy. families were closer and you knew your neighboughs. all gone.

I echo your sentiments entirely, but our kids and Grandkids seem to be managing this modern age of instant everything ok, and fair play now, we aren’t doing so bad ourselves.

 

[kathyms]

HI,

i was born in the 40s not long after the war. i lived in a village befor the new box shape houses were built by the hundred. i wish as i grew up i could have taken pics of the cottages and old shops that have long gone. they are in my head but now all that is left is car sales large shops and new err modern houses. those old cottages that were every were , in every town in the uk. large families lived in one or two up and one or two down. but they were happy. families were closer and you knew your neighboughs. all gone.

I echo your sentiments entirely, but our kids and Grandkids seem to be managing this modern age of instant everything ok, and fair play now, we aren’t doing so bad ourselves.

HI SMILER, yes i agree with you. our kids enjoy the modern life, my son builds the huge buildings in industrial sights. we wouldnt be on here be it not for internet. and id rather have my washing matchine than the single tub with a wringer i first had lol. but the buildings that we had and took for granted have gone, as is the history and comunity. but life moves on. my grandkids as yours enjoy the modern times and one wonders what there children and grand kids lives will be like. my so the builder is into urbex, he goes with me tho im not aloud in now due to as he says my age. but he remembers the being taken around buildings when they grew up.

 

[Scaramanger]

Got way too many to list. One of the main ones I think was the ABC cinema in Leicester, don't even know why some of us never got round to getting in there

I managed to get in the ABC cinema but it was to watch ET when it was still open

 

[Badoosh]

I'm just disappointed that I didn't document the explores in my teen years. Especially RAF Binbrook & RAF North Cotes when they were under care & maintenance, also Grimsby & Hull docks in the late 80's & numerous other sites. Suppose i'll just have to wait for the technology to be available to download the vivid memories from inside my head!

 

[Lhiannan Shee]

Cane Hill

Got into this lark about 6 months too late to see Cane Hill properly or at least when it was worth doing during demo, saw the outside of it from the fence in mid-2009 but that was it

Have to agree with that one. I remember before I knew these forums existed, many years ago now, sitting in my school library looking at pictures on Google, I always thought one day I'd get there. But living where I do, it just never happened