Via Text Message:
Priority 7: “So What are you and you’re wife up to this weekend?”
UrbanX: “Not much, she’s away on a hen do all weekend”
10 mins later…
Priority 7: “Ferry’s booked”
WTF, this is becoming an addiction! Thanks to the last minuteness of this trip two of our usual four strong contingent were unable to make it. Priority 1 (Mrs Priority 7 to you and me) stepped in to fill one of the places.
The plan was audacious and daring. I can’t get any time off work, so we’d need to cover 1,000 miles in 24 hours…so the plan went like this:
Friday: After a 10 hour day, leave work at 6 ,
home by 7,
Eat and shower by 8.
Get around one and a half hours sleep,
Leave house by 10pm.
Dover by 1am
On ferry at 2am,
France by 5am (It’s plus an hour)
Hit Chateau des Singes by 8-9am.
I leave work at 6, all is going to plan, then I get a text from Priority 7 “Not sure if I can do it, I’ve got a stomach bug”
I sympathetically texted back a link to some adult nappies.
“That’s no good it’s coming out of both ends” came the reply.
Bugger.
I told him to get some toast and get his head down.
By 10pm the last of the bug had been heaved from his system, and he was right as rain.
It was all go.
Any doubt as to whether Chateau des Singes was abandoned or not we soon quashed as we made our way through the garden. It took us nearly an hour to clamber through the brambles. Then we emerged covered in cuts to face this:
This site says it all about European explores, it’s just mint, not a scrap of graffiti. We had seen a photo of the stairs, and knew it’d be the money shot so we made our way straight there.
Stair detailing:
Main Drawing Room:
Fireplace detail:
In drawing room 2, the panels had been carefully stacked (awaiting renovation?)
Drawing Room 3 – Check out the panelling!
Same room other side, check out the hand paintings:
Upstairs a lot of the flooring had been stripped, giving me the chance to dance across the joists
I wandered up further into the roof space:
I couldn’t help but think “I bet this would look better from the centre of one of those crossbeams” So up I went….
I picked up a feint human scent from the other part of the roofspace. I cant really describe it, but it seemed different to the normal smell of a dry dusty derelict building. I knew the others were in the house, but I knew they weren’t up here. I slowly ventured in, alone, expecting to see someone at any moment.
Piles and piles of sporting newspapers were piled up. One per day every day of the year. There’s about 3 years worth here.
A mattress was laid out, with a blanket, a book still open on a page…
Personal effects
Another 3 years worth of newspapers
I found a filing cabinet filled with library style record cards. I don’t know what they are referencing, they are all neumerical based. I’m guessing something to do with horseracing?
Programmes from old horse races dating back to 1964:
Princess Di on the cover
Keys
Group Shot:
We finished up at Chateau des Singes by lunchtime, and started heading back. We nipped into Sanatorium F on the way back, but it was still 10 hours until we reached our comfy West London hotel. The last bits of the drive were crazy, with us all dropping off from the exhaustion of covering 1,000 miles in 24 hours on next to no sleep.
Massive thanks to Priority 7 for finding the site, and doing all of the driving on the wrong side.
Cheers for looking.
Dereliction Addiction 29: Chateau des Singes:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSFXmEILksQ
Priority 7: “So What are you and you’re wife up to this weekend?”
UrbanX: “Not much, she’s away on a hen do all weekend”
10 mins later…
Priority 7: “Ferry’s booked”
WTF, this is becoming an addiction! Thanks to the last minuteness of this trip two of our usual four strong contingent were unable to make it. Priority 1 (Mrs Priority 7 to you and me) stepped in to fill one of the places.
The plan was audacious and daring. I can’t get any time off work, so we’d need to cover 1,000 miles in 24 hours…so the plan went like this:
Friday: After a 10 hour day, leave work at 6 ,
home by 7,
Eat and shower by 8.
Get around one and a half hours sleep,
Leave house by 10pm.
Dover by 1am
On ferry at 2am,
France by 5am (It’s plus an hour)
Hit Chateau des Singes by 8-9am.
I leave work at 6, all is going to plan, then I get a text from Priority 7 “Not sure if I can do it, I’ve got a stomach bug”
I sympathetically texted back a link to some adult nappies.
“That’s no good it’s coming out of both ends” came the reply.
Bugger.
I told him to get some toast and get his head down.
By 10pm the last of the bug had been heaved from his system, and he was right as rain.
It was all go.
Any doubt as to whether Chateau des Singes was abandoned or not we soon quashed as we made our way through the garden. It took us nearly an hour to clamber through the brambles. Then we emerged covered in cuts to face this:
This site says it all about European explores, it’s just mint, not a scrap of graffiti. We had seen a photo of the stairs, and knew it’d be the money shot so we made our way straight there.
Stair detailing:
Main Drawing Room:
Fireplace detail:
In drawing room 2, the panels had been carefully stacked (awaiting renovation?)
Drawing Room 3 – Check out the panelling!
Same room other side, check out the hand paintings:
Upstairs a lot of the flooring had been stripped, giving me the chance to dance across the joists
I wandered up further into the roof space:
I couldn’t help but think “I bet this would look better from the centre of one of those crossbeams” So up I went….
I picked up a feint human scent from the other part of the roofspace. I cant really describe it, but it seemed different to the normal smell of a dry dusty derelict building. I knew the others were in the house, but I knew they weren’t up here. I slowly ventured in, alone, expecting to see someone at any moment.
Piles and piles of sporting newspapers were piled up. One per day every day of the year. There’s about 3 years worth here.
A mattress was laid out, with a blanket, a book still open on a page…
Personal effects
Another 3 years worth of newspapers
I found a filing cabinet filled with library style record cards. I don’t know what they are referencing, they are all neumerical based. I’m guessing something to do with horseracing?
Programmes from old horse races dating back to 1964:
Princess Di on the cover
Keys
Group Shot:
We finished up at Chateau des Singes by lunchtime, and started heading back. We nipped into Sanatorium F on the way back, but it was still 10 hours until we reached our comfy West London hotel. The last bits of the drive were crazy, with us all dropping off from the exhaustion of covering 1,000 miles in 24 hours on next to no sleep.
Massive thanks to Priority 7 for finding the site, and doing all of the driving on the wrong side.
Cheers for looking.
Dereliction Addiction 29: Chateau des Singes:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSFXmEILksQ
