What Made You Take Up Urban Exploring?

[ironsky]

I started to get into Urban Exploring after reading John Harris's 'No Voice From The Hall'. The book is set in the years following the end of the Second World War about the plight of country houses when the demolition rate was at an all time high Harris travelled around the country photographing the houses and often got in a few of them. This book got me interested in derelict buildings or abandoned places done a couple of country houses, perhaps realising such places needed recording when a building is demolished it's gone forever. What inspired you into taking up urban exploring?

 

[SlimJim]

Interesting question, Squire. I'm a third generation inquisitive explorer of ruins. I was always poking around derelict buildings as a kid with my Dad, when he was younger and fitter and he was doing the same with his Dad, especially following the disbanding of the coastal defences in the UK in the 1960s. Good memories of the 90s, prodding a mummified cat in an old basement in the Nevada desert, exploring an old plantation in Barbados and looking around some of the now long demolished air raid shelters at Shoreham Airport in West Sussex. Good times It's in the blood I reckon.

 

[ironsky]

Interesting question, Squire. I'm a third generation inquisitive explorer of ruins. I was always poking around derelict buildings as a kid with my Dad, when he was younger and fitter and he was doing the same with his Dad, especially following the disbanding of the coastal defences in the UK in the 1960s. Good memories of the 90s, prodding a mummified cat in an old basement in the Nevada desert, exploring an old plantation in Barbados and looking around some of the now long demolished air raid shelters at Shoreham Airport in West Sussex. Good times It's in the blood I reckon.

Nothing like a mummified cat to top any explore.

 

[SlimJim]

Nothing like a mummified cat to top any explore.

Mmmm CRISPY!!!

 

[ironsky]

Slightly off topic but I don't want to start a new thread for a minor question. When I do finally post a report up you will find I photograph pubs more than anything else due to the fact the closure rate is forever rising. Is it allowed to put up photos of pubs when still open as a I try to recorded there last day of trading or only allowed to put photos when closed? Thanks

 

[UrbanX]

I googled "Urban Photography" thinking I was going to get into street photography.

Some urbex pics came up.

Nothing got done at work for the next 2 weeks.

 

[Chopper]

Well, in 1968 I escaped from Newgate prison. I had a friend in Bognor Regis so I set off walking, sticking to the fields of course to avoid the police, but not straying too far from the beaten track. I had heard reports of hill people snatching weary travelers.
I arrived some 14 years later in 2013, exhausted, malnourished, but worst of all, with flat batteries on my camera. I had seen a limeworks about 6 miles back. Nothing seemed more important than getting photos; not food, not having a wee, not even removing the damn bear trap that had weighed me down since Wolverhampton (I took a slight wrong turn).
So I headed back, camera charged and whistling jauntily.
The adventure was worth it, despite being severely malnourished, low in blood and gangrenous on my leg wound.
18 months later, all healed and still on the run, I love exploring.
So, not the most exciting story, but we all had to start somewhere.

 

[krela]

Slightly off topic but I don't want to start a new thread for a minor question. When I do finally post a report up you will find I photograph pubs more than anything else due to the fact the closure rate is forever rising. Is it allowed to put up photos of pubs when still open as a I try to recorded there last day of trading or only allowed to put photos when closed? Thanks

I like what you're doing but it's not really of relevance to the forum when they're open. Closed only please, having said that if you have photos of both a few before and after reports sounds great.

I'm not sure I ever "took up" urbex, I don't really consider what I do urbex. I'm just a nosy bugger and if something interests me I'll investigate it. I've always been like that. Conversely if it doesn't interest me I won't bother with it, which is why I rarely post any reports any more as there's hardly anything that interests me that I haven't already seen. I'm not into the tourist trail or repeat visits really.

 

[HughieD]

I guess my dad, God rest his soul, was an explorer and got me into looking round old buildings. We used to go to North Wales on holiday every year and on our walks came across old mine workings, old halls, abandoned farm houses and the like which we used to poke around. So my interest in architecture, history and old buildings comes from there.

A remember on holiday when we went to South Wales for a change one year and we went to see Carew castle. At the time it was effectively abandoned. I remember him lifting me up and helping me scramble over farmer's walls and squeezing round the locked iron gate to get in. Wished I had the old pictures from that sortie. I have some pictures from the 80s at Brynkir Hall in this retrospective report I did on the site here:

http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/showthread.php?t=25123&highlight=folly#.VDo_9Iy9KSM

 

[Mr beady]

Id been looking for somewhere to try my new tights and gas mask and ended up in a urbex