Explore #19 of ‘The Picnics & Palaces Tour’

The next morning our exploring odyssey continued with a permission visit to a beautiful chapel which is slowly decaying behind locked doors in a small Polish town.

Our Explore

It was another gorgeously sunny spring morning – so where better to be than inside a dark and cold disused church! The caretaker let us in, and we had just over an hour to take our shots.

The sunshine helped illuminate the faded gold-coloured interior…

Ceiling detail…

Most of the chapel was built from wood, so I was extra cautious as I made my way upstairs to the most decayed parts of the chapel…

The passage of time – and the local pigeons – have not been kind to this effigy of Christ!

The old organ sits silent and forgotten…

One of the pews up in the highest part of the chapel – sad to think that this place once had need for capacity of almost a thousand parishioners, and now lies empty.

B&W JC

The view from the first floor balcony.

With time running out I made my way back downstairs…

…and took a few details shots.

I just had time to grab a quick team shot before we made our way back outside into the sunshine.

We thanked the caretaker, and went off to hunt down some breakfast.

As always thanks for looking. I should have another batch of reports coming very soon, so please sign up for email notifications if you’ve not already done so – link on the front page.

Cheers
Adam X

Explore #20 of ‘The Picnics & Palaces Tour’

The next location was a quick stopover at now very derelict old palace…

History (translated and rewritten from here).

The first manor house on the site dated back to the 17th century and was owned by the von Gfug family. After the death of the last owner of this family,Karl Christian the Count von Gfug , the estate was inherited by his widow Eleonora Carolina the Countess von Hochberg. When she died in 1737 the village became the property of the von Posadowsky family.

In the 1830s the estate was acquired by Georg Earl von Stosch, and remained in his family until the early twentieth century. During this period the manor house was extensively reconstructed in 1887 into the appearance which the palace retains to the present day.

The Palace circa 1905.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the property passed to the von Rohr family, and the last owner was Kurt von Rohr. After World War II the Palace was appropriated by the State and formed the hub of the local Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne (PGR), which was a form of collective farming created in 1949 to provide socialist ownership of agricultural land by the government. These PGRs were relatively inefficient and subsidized by the government, and most went bankrupt quickly after the fall of communism and adoption of a market economy by Poland.

The Palace has been privately owned since 1997, but sits empty and decaying.

Our Explore

From a quick recce of the Palace it was clear that there was nothing left inside of any interest, and venturing further inside would have been an exercise in pointless danger. We therefore soaked up the glorious sunshine outside and made do with a few quick external shots of its still photogenic façade.

We did have one rather worrying moment, when looking to the side of the building two huge rottweilers suddenly came running from the neighbouring property towards us – thankfully they only barked for a few heartstopping moments before retreating back to their owner’s property!

Thanks for looking.

Adam X

Explore #21 of ‘The Picnics & Palaces Tour’

As we continued our Polish roadtrip, next on the list was this rather strange ‘palace’ lost deep in some woodland…

History (translated and rewritten from here and here).

The Palace was built in the 1850s for the Duke of Brunswick-Oleśnica Wilhelm, and was designed by the architect Karłowski. It was extended in 1895 and again in 1902-1903, and is counted among the most architecturally valuable buildings in the region. The palace is constructed of several blocks 1-2 storeys high on the cellars, partly brickwork filled with brick, boarded and covered with bark of cork oak imported from Africa, and complemented with native oak bark. It is thought to be one of only two palaces in Europe whose facade is lined with this bark. In the central part of the palace there are four rooms with original wooden ceilings with pseudoconcrete décor, and two other rooms feature wall paintings.

From 1886 the palace was owned by Baron Daniel von Diergardt, and from 1891 by his widow Agnes von Diergardt.

During World War II the pine forests and grounds of the palace were liberated by armoured units of the Soviet Red Army, and prisoners of war used to work harvesting wood. After the war the palace was used as a Centre for the Improvement of Forest Workers, before becoming a forestry technical school and vocational training centre from 1950-1975. After closure of the school the palace remained in the ownership of the State Forests division, later becoming another training centre (1975-1988), and a hotel for forestry workers (1988-1992).

The palace was sold into private ownership in 1992, and is listed on the ‘Register Of Immovable Monuments’ of the Wielkopolska province.

Our Explore

This was another permission visit arranged by James via some Polish contacts. We were met by a rather strange old man, whose status was not entirely clear – we think he was the caretaker, but at one point during our visit someone else turned up and started berating him in Polish! We did our best to ignore the distractions, and spent an hour grabbing a few shots of the dilapidated building…

James and his Dad

Happy hunting.

Adam X

Explore #22 of ‘The Picnics & Palaces Tour’

Our palaces megatour continued with a quick late-afternoon stopover at another grand old palace which has fallen into serious (and now terminal) decline…

History (translated and rewritten from here).

The baroque Palace Belcz dates back to 1787, when it was owned by the von Kalkereuth family. The estate then passed to the Schönborns, before being bought by Ludwig Adolph Theodor Dürr in 1898.

During World War II the palace was commandeered by the German state, possibly due to the owner’s debt.

In the Post-War years the palace and grounds went through various uses, including an agricultural school, a factory, and from the 1970s until 1997 was an educational centre for mentally disabled children.

The palace is now privately owned, but sits empty and uncared for. On 15 May 2016 (just days after our visit), a huge fire destroyed almost the entire roof of the palace.

Our Explore

This was a relaxed little explore – as you will see there’s not a huge amount left of interest these days other than the smashed remains of the double staircase…

…a few features still remain in this side room, such as the ornate ceiling and crest above the fireplace…

The rear of the property…

…and how it once looked in its heyday a century ago…

Back to those stairs…

The view from a balcony on the first floor landing…

Tourists!

Thanks for stopping by.

Adam X

Explore #23 of ‘The Picnics & Palaces Tour’

After our explore of Great Belcz we just had time to grab a quick external shot of one more crumbling palace…

History (translated and rewritten from here).

The Baroque Pałac Glinka was built in the 18th century by the Zobeltitz family. The building and landscaped parkland were expanded during the nineteenth century, and despite heavy fighting in the area it survived World War II relatively intact.

In the post-war period, as with many such palaces it became State-owned and was put to a variety of uses, including a farm, kindergarten, offices, and canteen. The palace fell into disuse after the liquidation of State farms and in 2003 was leased for ten years to a private tenant, who failed to comply with his obligations to conserve the property and allowed it to continue into rapid decline.

The State agency repossessed the palace, and is now seeking to sell the land by open tender. However, the property still stands empty and deteriorating.

Our Explore

We arrived after sunset, and the very last of the light was fading by the second. We knew from previous research that there was nothing left inside the palace’s broken shell of any real interest, but we just had time to grab a quick external shot each before darkness completely fell and we hit the road again to find our motel for the night.

Just the single shot from here I’m afraid, but here’s the “spooky” edit…

…and the “normal” edit.

Thanks for looking.

Adam X

Explore #24 of ‘The Picnics & Palaces Tour’

We started the final day of our roadtrip with a nice relaxed little explore of an old Gothic church close to the German border.

History
This Gothic church was built in the 15th Century, and was completely rebuilt in the late 1700s. Further extensions and refinements were added in the 1920s, including a new crypt and new wooden chancel.

The village which the church served was originally in East Germany, but the land passed to Polish territory as part of the redrawing of borders at the end of World War II.

The church has lain empty and decaying for many years, but a programme of restoration works began in 2016/2017.

Our Explore

Another gorgeous sunny morning spent poking around in a dark and dusty dereliction! After taking a few shots I spent half my time helping throw handfuls of dust up into the air for James and Dan to take more shots with the sunbeams streaming in.

Then it was time to bid a fond farewell to Poland, and head back into Germany…

Cheers
Adam X

Explore #25 of ‘The Picnics & Palaces Tour’

We left Poland and headed back towards Berlin for what turned out to be a rather brief and sad revisit to this former military sanatorium, which James and I had first explored in much greater depth back in August 2014.

History
Originally built in 1898 on the plans of architect Heino Schmieden, this vast complex of approximately 60 buildings was designed as a sanatorium for the Berlin workers’ health insurance corporation to treat lung diseases such as tuberculosis, which at that time killed nearly 1 in every 3 Berliners.

Following the outbreak of World War I, Beelitz was used as a military hospital for the Imperial German Army. A young Adolf Hitler was (in)famously treated here between October and November 1916 after being wounded in the leg at the Battle of the Somme.

Beelitz was used as a field hospital to treat wounded Nazis during World War II. It was occupied by Red Army Forces in 1945, and remained a Soviet military hospital for the next 50 years until 1995, well after the fall of the Berlin wall.

In April 1990 Erich Honecker was admitted to Beelitz, after being forced to resign as the head of the East German government on 18 October 1989 shortly before the fall of the Berlin wall on 9 November 1989. It was here that he was diagnosed with the malignant liver tumour from which he died in May 1994.

The site gained further notoriety around this time when the serial killer Wolfgang Schmidt, also known as the Pink Giant or The Beast of Beelitz, murdered four of his six victims in the hospital grounds during 1990.

Yet another dark episode in Beelitz’s recent past occurred in 2008, when a well-known photographer called Michael F brutally murdered a 20 year old model called Anja P with a frying pan after having photographed her, and then had sex with her corpse.

Following the Soviet withdrawal in 1995 attempts were made to privatise the hospital, but none were successful. Today a few small sections are used for neurological rehabilitation and Parkinson’s research, but the majority of the vast complex lies decaying.

In recent years the site has also been used as a film location, as well as for music videos by the likes of Rammstein.

Our Explore
We didn’t know whether the Men’s Sanatorium and Bathhouse would still be accessible, but seeing as we were in the neighbourhood we thought it would be worth a look. The Bathhouse was a quick failure – freshly secured and with remote alarms attached to nearby trees. After triggering one we hopped back over the fence and decided on a fresh angle of attack – this time on the main Sanatorium building. A painstaking approach through woodland, and we managed to find a point of access which avoided the remote alarms.

Unfortunately as soon as we found our way inside we were confronted with a very different looking building to the decay porn which James and I had enjoyed on our previous visit. I have since found out that the building was redecorated to be used as part of the set for the 2016 film ‘A Cure For Wellness’.

Whilst I suppose I should be glad that the fantastic building is still being put to some practical use, we were all gutted to see that the peeling paint had been replaced with a basic new paint job. We decided not to hang around, but took a few shots just to document the changes.

Below are a couple of images which I’ve created by blending one of my shots from August 2014 [left] with the same view in May 2016 [right].

We then headed off to try and squeeze in one last explore before we caught our afternoon flight home…

Thanks
Adam X

Explore #26 of ‘The Picnics & Palaces Tour’

As we had cut out revisit of Beelitz short we still had a couple of hours to use before heading to the airport, so decided to pay a revisit to this former military hospital, crumbling away in some forgotten woodland…

History
I have not found much history of the hospital, other than that it served the vast Soviet army forces which were stationed all around this region from the end of World War II until shortly after German reunification in the early 1990s. It has lain abandoned ever since.

Our Explore
When James and I had first explored The Blue Hospital back in August 2014 we had run out of light, and I came away with just a solitary useable shot before we nearly got lost in the woods in the dark!

This revisit was a much more chilled out affair – having a few swigs of the last of a bottle of Havana Club which needed finishing before we headed home, and enjoying the afternoon light…

Cheers!

I love old peeling murals, and was delighted to come across a few in what was clearly a children’s ward…

It was great to be back in peeling paint heaven after the disappointment of the new paint job at Beelitz!

The East German and Russian flags give a glimpse back to the history of this part of the world…

Just slightly more light was available than when I photographed this chair last time!

Another peeling mural…

A mural of Lenin, now slowly decaying amongst the overgrowth…

Eventually it was time to go, and our epic tour of 26 different locations over 7 days finally came to a close. I know I will look back on the Picnics & Palaces Tour as one of my favourite European exploring jaunts – the scenery was beautiful, the weather was glorious, the locations were amazing, and above all the company was a great laugh. I’ll leave you with this ace piece of German hip hop which became the unofficial anthem of our trip… enjoy!

Thanks
Adam X

Back in the UK after my weeklong roadtrip to Germany and Poland, I popped down to London for a spot of rooftopping at this 18-storey office development in the heart of the City.

After scouting the perimeter James, Jade and I identified the most secluded spot to avoid security and cameras, and after some quick climbing and ducking through the site we worked our way to the roof…

The top of The Shard was obscured by the rather damp and misty conditions.

On the way back down we couldn’t resist stopping for a quick spot of construction site dressing up: The Roboderpers!

With dawn approaching we headed off for another target – a rather cool derelict church, which turned out to be in a rather rough part of the town with less than friendly locals! The story of that rather eventful explore will be coming very soon, so if you haven’t already done so please sign up for email alerts on the front page and you’ll be notified whenever I post something new.

Cheers
Adam X

After our nocturnal adventures rooftopping in central London, we headed to Southall to explore this beautiful derelict church… unfortunately I only managed to take one shot before things went rather wrong!

History (rewritten from here)
The 3-storey King’s Hall was built in 1916 with a stone and brick facade, designed by architect Sir Alfred Gelder of Hull. It was operated by the Uxbridge and Southall Wesleyan Mission, and screened religious films.

By 1926 it was operating as a regular cinema, still managed by the Methodist church.

King’s Hall Church, c. 1990

The Cinema closed in 1937, when it reverted back to use as the King’s Hall Methodist Church. Over time the church fell into disrepair, finally closing in January 2013. The building has lain unused and decaying ever since.

Our Explore
James, Jade and I arrived at around 4am, thinking that the street outside would be deserted and our access entirely inconspicuous. Instead we found around a dozen people waiting for a night bus at the bus stop immediately by our access point! After sitting it out for about 20 minutes the bus finally arrived and collected its passengers, and we made our move. Soon we were safely inside, but it was still too dark to shoot so we stretched out uncomfortably on the folding wooden seats and snoozed for an hour or so until shortly after dawn.

No sooner had we started to shoot when a couple of our other explorer friends and one of their mates turned up. It was great to see them again, but no more than 10 minutes later our explore was brought to an untimely end when we saw guys with high viz jackets on the nearby roof pointing and shouting at the church! Someone had clearly been spotted coming in – oh well, these things happen.

We tried to do what we usually do when caught inside buildings – apologise, explain the purpose of our visit, and say that we don’t want any trouble and will leave immediately. Unfortunately that wasn’t possible here, because the idiot in the high viz was some local moron who didn’t want to let us leave peacefully, and started trying to throw rocks at us whenever we tried to climb out of our access window!

Much bad tempered shouting ensued from both sides…

…Jade even unleashed her army of pigeons at him…

Thanks for stopping by – it’s been eventful!
Adam X

History
The Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory(MRAO) is home to a number of large aperture synthesis radio telescopes, including the One-Mile Telescope, 5-km Ryle Telescope, and the Arcminute Micro kelvin Imager. Radio interferometry started in the mid-1940s on the outskirts of Cambridge, and with funding from the Science Research Council and a donation of £100,000 from Mullard Limited, construction of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory was completed and opened by Sir Edward Victor Appleton on 25 July 1957.

The site is located at Lord’s Bridge, Cambridgeshire on a former ordnance storage facility, next to the now-abandoned Cambridge-Bedford railway line. A portion of the track bed of the old line, running nearly East-West for several miles, was used to form the main part of the “5km” radio-telescope and the Cambridge Low Frequency Synthesis Telescope.

The Observatory is operated by the Cavendish Laboratory, supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

My Explore
I’d been meaning to photograph these largely disused antennae for absolutely ages. Finally a night came when I was didn’t have to be up early the next morning, and the weather was suitable for night photography, i.e not too cloudy or windy. As it was a spur of the moment decision I did this as a solo explore, which was great as it meant I could spend as much time as I wanted taking my shots, including a 30-minute sequence used to create the ‘star trail’ image. The only downside was I don’t mind to admit it was a little creepy at times in the dark, especially with foxes and owls occasionally wailing and screeching in the nearby undergrowth!

All in all this was a very enjoyable night out, and I plan on returning for some more shots of the other parts of the site in the near future.

One antenna of the One-Mile Telescope.

Built in 1964 the telescope comprises three 60-foot parabolic reflectors, which are fully steerable. Each dish weighs 120 tonnes, two are fixed and one is set on an 800m track with the Half Mile Telescope. This track is straight to within 0.9cm and is raised 5cm at the far end to allow for the curvature of the Earth. This set up was able to observe individual radio sources at extreme sensitivity, angular resolution and image quality.

One antenna of the One-Mile Telescope (left), two of the Half-Mile Telescope (centre) and the remains of the 4C Array (right).

The Half Mile Telescope was originally constructed in 1968, with two dishes. In 1972 a further two dishes were added. Two are fixed and two share the track with the One Mile Telescope. Thirty days of observations were required to obtain information from the maximum number of different baselines. They produced the first good radio maps of hydrogen distribution for the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31).

The 4C Array which looks like a huge aerial is a cylindrical paraboloid radio telescope. Constructed in 1958, it is 450m long and 20m wide and used some 64 kilometres of reflector cable. A second moveable element of this array has now been mostly removed.

One antenna of the Half-Mile Telescope.

And I’ll leave you with this star trails composite, taken over the course of just over half an hour.

Thanks for being stars.
Adam X

Explore #1 of the ‘128mb SD Card Tour’

To be honest this tour was probably the least successful and enjoyable European trip so far (although all the others have been amazing), as it was overshadowed by a serious bit of bad luck before I even joined it, although I can’t go go into any details here. But you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth, and looking back I still have loads of amazing memories from the trip, which I will do my best to share in the forthcoming reports. We still had some epic and fun times, and I’m so grateful that I got to explore some really cool locations with great friends.

After lots of last minute rearranging of plans I eventually joined the rest of the gang (James, Jade and Dan) for the second half of their week long roadtrip. I arrived in the early hours of the morning, and after a quick beer and catch up grabbed a few hours kip before an early start the next morning.

The first location was a huge derelict industrial tower of a former distillery, codenamed ‘Oculus’.

Our Explore
James had been chased off the site by workers when he had attempted it solo a year or so earlier, and as we cautiously approached we could hear what sounded like demolition work extremely near by. Silently we altered our final approach to the tower to keep as much cover as possible. The noise of workers (or metal thieves? we couldn’t be sure) were only yards away, just the other side of the tower. Carefully we crept to the perimeter and made our way inside the smashed remains of Oculus…

As always, click on a photo to launch slideshow viewer

The view over some of the rest of the site.

James and Jade looking out for nearby workers…

As we left we ran into the people who had been making all the nearby noise, and there was a slightly nervous moment when we saw that one of them was wielding a large crowbar. Luckily they also saw our tripods with heavy metal heads attached, and as we were leaving there was no problem. I grabbed a quick external photo of the tower as we headed off for the next location…

Eye eye cap’n
Adam X

Explore #2 of the ‘128mb SD Card Tour’

After exploring Oculus Tower, we unfortunately failed on our next couple of targets. We then headed high up into the mountains to this disused former NATO communications facility with a silly urbex codename, where we also planned to camp for the night.

History (translated and rewritten from here and here)

Station ‘Livorno’, atop Monte del Giogo, was one of 82 ‘ACE HIGH’ L-band troposcatter communications bases located in nine different NATO countries.

[Photo reproduced from here, all original copyright acknowledged]

Dating back to 1956, the ‘over the horizon’ system used microwave radio to communicate over large distances, stretching nearly 4000km from the far north of Norway to south-east Turkey.

[Diagram reproduced from here, all original copyright acknowledged]

The closure of the network began in the early 1990s when satellite communications took over, with this station closing in 1994.

Following closure the site lay derelict and vandalised for many years. However, since around 2005 the management of the area (still military) has been granted to a group of paramedics, the ‘ARI and Scatter Group’. Despite the obvious logistical difficulties their aim is to redevelop the site and create a museum preserving its structures and equipment. They hope to preserve the 4 gigantic paraboloids of 20 meters in diameter, putting them into operation for civil purposes – two are already in operation. The site has been reconnected with electricity, and wifi/ADSL network connectivity added.

However, over a decade since they first took over the site it still lies largely disused and unnoticed, its future far from certain.

Our Explore
As with most of this trip things didn’t go particularly smoothly with this location!

The first issue was when my trusty Australian-voiced satnav Bruce got all confused and tried to take us up what turned into an impassable logging track! We eventually managed to get the car back down and redirected to the proper road up to the station.

Unfortunately, that road hadn’t been maintained since the station had closed, and around halfway up we came around a bend to find a massive hole which was impassable in our non-4WD estate car. But we weren’t about to be beaten that easily, so we set to work foraging old tree branches and rubble to try and fill in some of the crater. After half an hour or so we had eventually fashioned enough of a makeshift ramp for Dan (the lightest) of our group to drive the car up and over, whilst the rest of us stood by the side shouting directions for exactly where the wheels needed to go. Our elation at this victory was muted though, as we were convinced that we’d round the next hairpin bend to find even worse road damage. Thankfully this wasn’t the case, and we finally made our way to the summit way past our planned arrival time just as the last of the light was fading.

Please excuse the grainy phone snap.

We wasted no time in getting our €20 tents set up, sheltering beneath the huge 20-metre parabolas, and then turned our attention to building a fire and cooking dinner. Luckily there was plenty of rubble to build a firepit, and dead overgrowth for fuel.

A very excited James!

They didn’t have baked beans in the Italian supermarket, so we made our own using tinned tomatoes, borlotti beans, and some seasoning – and it tasted amazing!

A tipsy Jade through the campfire smoke.

It took forever to cook dinner on the fire, but spirits were high as we enjoyed a well-earned drink. The stars began to come out, and the plan was to do some night photography once we’d eaten. Sadly, just as we were finishing a massive storm blew in and the heavens well and truly opened. We took shelter in the porch of one of the buildings, and carried on a rather chilly party for an hour or so before heading to our tents.

That night was one of the coldest and most uncomfortable I think I’ve ever spent. Despite wearing every piece of clothing I had in the tent (about 5 layers, including thermals, hat, hoodie etc) I woke shivering every half an hour or so, my side numb from the unyielding ground beneath. I honestly think that hypothermia can only have been a few degrees away.

I awoke at very first light, cold, knackered and rather grumpy. Dan and I were the first out of our tents. We were still surrounded by cloud and could hardly see a thing. But then suddenly there was a break in the white all around us, and we caught a first tantalising glimpse of the stunning view. Our moods immediately soared, and we rushed back to grab our cameras and tell James and Jade to get up.

Over the next hour or so the clouds continued to disperse and the view became better and better with every minute…

As always, click on a photo to launch slideshow viewer

A dodgy iPhone panorama

We packed everything away, and made sure we had removed every last scrap of rubbish. We jumped in the car, and… nothing! Dead battery! It seems the freezing temperatures hadn’t been to our car’s liking either. The good news for a push start was that we were at the top of a very large slope. The bad news was that the slope consisted of lots of hairpin bends with precipitous drops down the mountainside! James was nominated as pilot. The first attempt didn’t work. We slowly manoeuvred the car around one hairpin to the next straight bit of road, and tried again. The car and James rolled down the road and into a thick bank of low-lying cloud and out of sight. Then we heard what sounded like a roar of an engine and a very loud “arrrrrgghhhhh” shout coming out of the mist! We ran towards it, not knowing whether James had lost control and crashed off the side of the road, or whether that was a shout of victory. Thankfully it was the latter, and we were back in business! We hopped in, and slowly made our way down the mountain, stopping briefly to further admire the view…

[Another dodgy iPhone panorama]

Eventually we made our way back to the bottom of the track and onto the main road, where we stopped to take a few shots of the dishes in the distance…

I will never forget our visit to Ice Station Zebra – it’s not every explore which features logging trails, road repairs, camping in the clouds, campfires, drinks and laughs, borderline hypothermia, dead cars, and views like that! Next time I think I’ll come back with a 4 wheel drive in the summer…

Ice to see you.
Adam X

Explore #3 of the ‘128mb SD Card Tour’

Next on our Italian roadtrip it was time for some abandoned asylum goodness…

History
This psychiatric hospital / asylum was founded in a coastal Italian city in the 1890s. It was intended to house less chronic patients, but many who were admitted ended up being incarcerated for years, if not permanently. Originally built to house up to 700 patients, a growing demand led to the construction of an extension in the 1930s, and patient numbers rose to some 1,500.

In the later part of the twentieth century such asylums were deemed to be undesirable and inappropriate for modern treatment techniques. Nationwide reforms were brought about by the 1978 ‘Law 180’, which ordered the closure of all psychiatric hospitals, and their replacement with community-based alternatives. The hospital finally closed in the late 1990s.

Our Explore
The hardest part of this explore was finding somewhere to park, as it is located in a very busy urban area! Soon we had avoided the locals, jumped a few walls, and found a way inside.

This was a really enjoyable and relaxed little explore, and one of those where there was a wonderful juxtaposition in walking around a deserted and silent decaying building whilst the shouts, car horns, and other noises of everyday modern life still occasionally filtered in from the world outside.

As always, click on a photo to launch slideshow viewer

The grand entrance hall, with marble twin staircase…

Door to the Reception (‘Accettazione’) area.

This crow (or raven?) graffiti / artwork was rather cool I thought.

Peeling paint goodness on one of the ground floor corridors.

The top floor landing.

I also loved this piece of graffiti / artwork, which strongly reminded me of Jenny Saville’s work.

After one last shot of those stairs it was time to head back outside and on to our next location…

Thanks for flying over.
Adam X

Explore #4 of the ‘128mb SD Card Tour’

History
This wonderful decaying little church is now all that remains of an 18th century villa which was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the construction of a refinery.

Our Explore
This was an uneventful and relaxing little explore, so I’ll crack straight on with the photos.

As always, click on a photo to launch slideshow viewer

Thanks for coming by.
Adam X

Explore #5 of the ‘128mb SD Card Tour’

Late in the afternoon we explored this grand old villa on the outskirts of a small village in the Italian countryside.

History
The villa dates back to at least the 18th century, and underwent two large revisions over its history. The original entrance overlooks the gardens and pond, but as the nearby village developed over time the service entrance became used as the main façade. The second revision to the architecture was in the Neoclassical style.

At the end of the 18th century the estate passed to a local Count, whose family collected and adorned the villa with many valuable works of art and precious local ceramics and furniture. However, the family later fell on hard times, and the villa was sold to a local lawyer in the 1860s. Records of the sale indicate that many of the opulent furnishings had already been sold by that time.

As the villa passed through various other owners parts of the grounds were sold off, until it was bought in the 1930s by a renowned painter who restored the villa and its remaining gardens over the next two decades. It was raided by partisans during the war (due to a hidden stash of alcohol!), but the owners returned after the war.

However, the decline of the villa began when ownership passed to a Swiss company in the late 1950s, and it has lain empty and disused for many years. In recent years it was declared a National Monument, but despite being put up for sale there appears little sign of a buyer.

Our Explore
By the time we arrived the best of the late afternoon light had already gone. But we did bump into some other Brit explorers who we knew (small world!), so chatted to them, grabbed a few shots, and decided to rejig our plans to enable a revisit in better light first thing the next morning.

As always, click on a photo to launch slideshow viewer

Wandering Dan in his standard photobombing mode.

 The grand central hall.

The rooms were largely stripped, with only the décor on the walls and ceilings harking back to former glories…

On the very top floor I ventured through the attic and came across this beautiful old room which looked out onto the front balcony.

The view from the balcony onto what was originally the tradesmen’s entrance, but later became the main façade.

The roof overlooking the gardens to the rear of the villa.

 The only item left behind!

 The main hall, viewed from upstairs.

 A huge crack running up a side wall of the hall.

 Subject to availability this photo can be purchased as a limited edition acrylic print from my Etsy Store.

 At the top of the stairs.

The beautiful porch of what was once the main entrance, overlooking the now overgrown garden.

Despite being stripped of all furniture, this was still a beautiful old place, and I’m glad we made the effort to drive back to it to shoot it in daylight!

Thanks for stopping by.
Adam X

Explore #6 of the ‘128mb SD Card Tour’

Next stop on our Italian tour was this beautiful crumbling old palace, with gorgeous chapel attached.

History
I’m afraid I’ve not been able to find much history on this location, other than the palace was the summer residence of a Count, and dates back to at least the eighteenth century. It is currently for sale for €1,600,000!

Our Explore
We picked our way through overgrown woodland, and made our way inside the decaying palace. Although the interior was stripped the wall décor still absolutely stunning. The small chapel situated within the grounds was my favourite part of the explore.

As always, click on a photo to launch slideshow viewer

Thanks for stopping by.
Adam X

Explore #7 of the ‘128mb SD Card Tour’

Time for another old asylum…

History (translated and rewritten from here)
Vercelli’s asylum was built in 1937, and comprises 20 pavilions and a church spread over 30 acres.

The asylum is infamous for a massacre after the end of World War II of a group of more than 70 soldiers of the fascist Socialist Republic of Italy, who had been held in a nearby stadium used as a prison camp. On 12 May 1945 a group of partisans loaded the prisoners into cars and brought them to Vercelli, locking them in the asylum after having forced the staff to leave. There the prisoners were violently beaten and divided into groups, and most then executed in a variety of horrible ways – some were shot, others thrown out of the windows, and others were brutally crushed beneath the wheels of a lorry.

In the 1960s the asylum’s reputation took another dark turn, when many of its nurses denounced the director, accusing him of using “psychologically violent” methods with patients.

The asylum finally closed in 1978 as a result of the Italian Mental Health Act of 1978, ‘Law 180’. This law, also known as ‘Basaglia Law’ after its main proponent the Italian psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, contained a directive for the closure of all asylums and their replacement with community-based patient services.

After closure of the psychiatric hospital the site was used as a regular hospital until 1991, when it was then closed and replaced by a new hospital nearby.

Following the closure the site has been left largely disused and decaying, with mountains of confidential patient records were left abandoned across the site.

Our Explore
This was a fun late afternoon spent fighting our way through overgrowth and exploring various buildings. We didn’t have time to see the whole of the site before darkness fell, so I’d definitely like to revisit at some point if the opportunity arises.

As always, click on a photo to launch slideshow viewer

The hot and humid climate has made for some lovely green decay…

At the end of a dark corridor I found boxes of confidential medical records strewn everywhere…

Even more disturbing was this scene – the skeleton of a bed and part of an old straight jacket. In the corner was machinery for administering Electroshock therapy (EST), and old vials of adrenaline and other drugs!

In another room we found more discarded medications and boxes of patient records…

And old overgrown greenhouse annexed to one of the buildings…

Yep, you guessed it, more records and decay…

Some green and blue peeling paint and decaying corridor goodness…

The remains of a small chapel…

…and a larger church.

As the last of the light finally faded we reluctantly made our way back through the overgrowth and headed off to our motel for the night.

Cheers
Adam X

Explore #8 of the ‘128mb SD Card Tour’

James and Jade had camped out in this old abandoned villa on a trip the year before (in fact their old tents were still stored in a decaying outbuilding!), so we decided to do the same for the night to save some €€€ for the Italian road tolls and James’ speeding tickets.

History
I haven’t been able to locate any history for this old villa. It appears to have been used as offices prior to its disuse – possibly as part of a former industrial site nearby which has now been redeveloped into parkland. The property has lain empty and for sale for many years, and despite signs of recent modest attempts to cover the worst of the decay (the downstairs hall has been repainted in the past year or so) a buyer is still proving elusive.

Our Explore
After making a stopover at a supermarket to load up on provisions we scaled the high wrought-iron perimeter fence and made our way inside. We quickly set up the inners of our cheapo tents a) to keep any old dust out and b) well, we had them so might as well use them! And then it was time for the evening’s festivities, with a veritable smorgasbord of a picnic: cheeses, bread, salads, cold meats, crisps, and more than a modicum of alcohol …

(Please excuse the grainy phone snaps!)

Towards the end of the evening we had a few vinos out on the balcony, looking back over the front garden and doing our best to keep our drunken voices down so as not to reveal our clandestine campsite. To be honest the whole area was deserted at that time of night anyway…

… the next morning the hangovers were brutal. Slowly we packed our things away, as always being careful to make sure that we removed every trace of rubbish with us. We also had some fun “helping” Jade take her tent down…

…on our way out we quickly photographed the only feature of any real interest – the attractive entrance hall and sweeping staircase, before making our way back outside and off to the next location.

Thanks for camping out.
Adam X

Explore #9 of the ‘128mb SD Card Tour’

After leaving Villa Margherita we unfortunately had another run of fails, so ended an unsuccessful day with a mooch around the huge concrete shell of a former factory near where to we would be staying for the night. Despite our grumpy moods we still managed to find a few bits and pieces of moderate interest, including some colourful graffiti and a resident metal thief who was bashing away in another part of the building as we snapped away!

As always, click on a photo to launch slideshow viewer

We headed straight to the roof…

The gang

This shot was fairly typical of the smashed and stripped interior…

Spot the metal thief…

…here’s a close up – he’s in the top centre window.

…some very colourful and weird graffiti…

In the centre of one of the blocks was a huge open shaft…

…selfie time!

Eventually it was time to head off – here’s Dan and his rather unconventional way of carrying his tripod. Such a strange Polish child!

Cheers.
Adam X