Taxal Lodge is a location that has been on the exploring scene for years but I hadn't seen anything from it for at least a year or two so felt it was worth stopping by and seeing what the state of play was.
Taxal Lodge was built in 1904 and was the home of Lt. Col. H. Ramsden Jodrell who died in 1950. The lodge then became a special school for 'disruptive or emotionally disturbed children'. They spent the weekdays at the school and were allowed home at the weekends, if they had a home to go to - if they didn't they stayed in another building nearby. This Lodge replaced an earlier Taxal Lodge originally built futher up the valley which is long gone. During it's time as a school it was reported that abuse was rife, and nowadays it's considered quite a haunted location if you're open to that kind of stuff. The School closed in 2005 and it has sat ever since, in 2010 a fire damaged a large amount of the outbuildings including the gymnasium but the main lodge was unaffected.
I didn't know what to expect as we made our way to the site. We got in easy enough but after about five minutes my friend told me he wanted to leave as he really didn't like the feeling he got inside. So I said to him OK I'll have a quick run around on my own and meet you in a bit outside the main building. I made my way further into the main lodge and found what was once the central staircase/atrium area and my god was I in for a shock. Almost the entire middle section of the building has collapsed from rampant dry rot including most of the staircase. I found a secondary concrete staircase at one end and headed up but being on my own and knowing how badly rotted the floors were I didn't feel comfortable going across the upstairs landings. The middle part of the building is a complete deathtrap now, so if you want to go be very careful...
Anyway I had a twenty minute run around and snapped enough photos for a post on here so this is what it now looks like in 2017, 12 years after closure.
Thanks for looking, more here https://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/albums/72157688234437295
Taxal Lodge was built in 1904 and was the home of Lt. Col. H. Ramsden Jodrell who died in 1950. The lodge then became a special school for 'disruptive or emotionally disturbed children'. They spent the weekdays at the school and were allowed home at the weekends, if they had a home to go to - if they didn't they stayed in another building nearby. This Lodge replaced an earlier Taxal Lodge originally built futher up the valley which is long gone. During it's time as a school it was reported that abuse was rife, and nowadays it's considered quite a haunted location if you're open to that kind of stuff. The School closed in 2005 and it has sat ever since, in 2010 a fire damaged a large amount of the outbuildings including the gymnasium but the main lodge was unaffected.
I didn't know what to expect as we made our way to the site. We got in easy enough but after about five minutes my friend told me he wanted to leave as he really didn't like the feeling he got inside. So I said to him OK I'll have a quick run around on my own and meet you in a bit outside the main building. I made my way further into the main lodge and found what was once the central staircase/atrium area and my god was I in for a shock. Almost the entire middle section of the building has collapsed from rampant dry rot including most of the staircase. I found a secondary concrete staircase at one end and headed up but being on my own and knowing how badly rotted the floors were I didn't feel comfortable going across the upstairs landings. The middle part of the building is a complete deathtrap now, so if you want to go be very careful...
Anyway I had a twenty minute run around and snapped enough photos for a post on here so this is what it now looks like in 2017, 12 years after closure.
Thanks for looking, more here https://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/albums/72157688234437295
