Chateau Miranda July 2012

Ok finally got round to doing a report on Chateau Miranda/Chateau Noisy setting off early on Sunday morning after binning the plans to camp out Saturday night and opting for the errrr luxury of a Hotel Formule1 instead. Following my navigator (Priority 7's) instructions we arrived at a errrrr grass verge that acted as our parking spot we started up through the woods the climb getting ever steeper until we arrived at what was for me one of the best explore's ive done...Big thanks to the lads that made a top weekend !
Urban X, Priority 7 and Covert Urbex.

A bit of history (nicked from Wickipedia

Miranda Castle (French: Château Miranda), also known as Noisy Castle (French: Château de Noisy) is a 19th century castle in Celles, province of Namur, Belgium, in the region of the Ardennes.

The castle was built in 1866 by the English architect Milner under commission from the Liedekerke-Beaufort family, who had left their previous home, Vêves Castle, during the French Revolution.

Their descendants remained in occupation until World War II, when it was taken over by the National Railway Company of Belgium (NMBS) as an orphanage. It remained a facility for the use of children until 1980.

It has stood empty since 1991. Although the municipality of Celles has offered to take it over, the family has refused, and the enormous building is now (as of 2011) in a derelict state. It has become a favourite venue of urban explorers

On with the pics........










































Unfortunately my plans to get some exterior shots were ruined thanks to the arrival of the groundsman on his motor bike and we had to make a rapid exit via the rear down through the woods we had to duck rapidly after a land rover pulled away from the cars location, again i can only assume they were part of the grounds staff !.On arrival back to our car where i found my rear tyre deflated....they definitely had the hump with us and quite obviously knew what we were up to, thank god for my plug in tyre inflator, tyre rapidly inflated we made a quick exit from a superb explore and the icing on a cracking weekend !!!

Thanks for looking !!!

ahhh thats a great report..wicked pics too..great stairway shots..

xcellent stf sir! You're getting to grips with the SLR aren't you!

Here's my effort (a lot similar to yours, sorry!)

History bit:
Miranda Castle is a 19th century castle in Celles, province of Namur, Belgium, in the region of the Ardennes.The castle was built in 1866 by the English architect Milner under commission from the Liedekerke-Beaufort family, who had left their previous home, Vêves Castle, during the French Revolution.

Their descendants remained in occupation until World War II, when it was taken over by the National Railway Company of Belgium (NMBS) as an orphanage. It remained a facility for the use of children until 1980.It has stood empty since 1991. Although the municipality of Celles has offered to take it over, the family has refused.


Here’s an external photo so you can see the scale of what were talking about. This is not my photograph, it is from Fuckyeahghosttowns and I am using here to show context. Unfortunately I was unable to get any external shots what so ever for reasons explained at the end.


Photograph from www.Fuckyeahghosttowns.tumblr.com

We were all up early, and had hit the road to Chateaux Miranda by 7:30, we were excited and would rather be exploring here than sleeping. We soon parked up, and were heading through the woods, our legs becoming moist from the morning dew on the foliage. The forest grew steeper, and we were all panting for breath. The moisture on our legs from the lush foliage was soon met by the sweat rolling down our backs as we pushed on through the humid early morning mists.

Then, she reveals herself to you. Not like a flasher. But like a careful burlesque dancer who has learnt the art of revelation for years. It starts with a little hint of a castellated stabling courtyard.



We entered the building, and made our way straight up a turret over looking said courtyard:




It wasn’t far until we stumbled across the iconic ‘Double bath’




Showers:


Sinks:

Nice morning light:


It wasn’t long until the floor started becoming sparser, and eventually disappeared. Leaving the vunerable skeletal joists exposed.


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We made our way out onto a small fire escape in the highest rooms. The view was spectacular.


Then I noticed that the gables to the chateaux rising up from where we were stood were stepped… And steps have to be, well…stepped.

I climbed up off of the fire escape onto the actual edge of the hidden gutter and tip toed carefully along the 2” wide beam. I reached the first step and put my foot on it. I heard a voice come from behind me:

“He’s not going to do what it looks like is he?”

But my mind blanked it out, I was in a trance. I gripped the ice cold smooth metal, and felt a real connection to the building. Feeling what a steeplejack would have felt 146 years ago, experiencing the view what he must have seen every day.

I started climbing, purposefully. I know what happens when I stop and pause. I climbed to the top, my grip becoming tighter with each step. When all of the steps had run out, I paused at the ridge to take in the view. It was mindblowing. The undulating hills, another Chateaux gleaming in the forest below. The air was so fresh in my face, and I could feel the wind blowing through my hair.

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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UEQlbpvtF10" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Then I looked down. Big mistake. My head began to spin, I felt unsteady. I couldn’t tell where my centre of gravity was. The lack of anything to actually wrap my fingers around became increasingly apparent. I looked over to the other gable to find that Covert Urbex had joined me by climbing the other parapet. I let go with one of my hands to take a picture of him.


He looked really relaxed. And that made me feel instantly relaxed. Well, not relaxed, but euphoric, and un-scared. I was actually enjoying the rush, I could feel my heart pounding, the same as ou do just after you narrowly miss a car accident. We gave each other the thumbs up, and he took my photograph.

This is my favourite photo from the trip. So Cheers Covert Urbex.


Photograph Copyright Covert Urbex.

We climbed down and met Urbex Dad on the fire escape, who seemed more nervous than us., He just calmly said “On your website you say that some people do drink, some do drugs, but you do this. I get it now.”

We carried on through the building, and the need for height gt us, so we headed to the highest point of the Chateau, the main turret.







Chilling in the clock hole. Note to self, do not look left and down!


The stair up here is quite funny really. The treads have been removed, and it’s left a smooth ramp, which is covered in dust and building sand. Attempting to walk down it is nearly impossible, you’d just slide. So you have to kind of put one foot either side, where the treads used to be. Oh and try not to slip down the middle.


To the ground floor now where we meet the majesty of the main staircase:




Here it is from the first floor.


And here is the view from the ground floor (looking in same direction) from the 1980’s:




All that was left to explore was the basement.








Just as we were finishing up we heard the noise of an engine. It couldn’t be from the road, that was quite busy and we’d not heard anything since we were there. The noise got closer and closer. We were in a room with a large open window in it with no where to hide. We headed straight to the wall with the window in it and stuck to the wall either side, hopefully hidden from view. The engine circled the house a couple of times, becoming deafening when it passed us. It grew louder, then it stopped, right by the window. There was two of us one side, and two the other side, I looked across and everyone looked really on edge. We were silent. Everyone was taking shallow breaths. The sound of the engine had been replaced by the sound of footsteps walking across the wet grass, right up to the window. “That’s it, we’ve had it. How did he know we were in here?” We waited what seemed an eternity, expecting the head to pop through the window at any moment. But it didn’t he just went.

We waited until the engine was on the far side of the house again before efficiently climbing out of the window (including the daisy chaining of camera bags) and we ran into the woods and just disappeared. We made our way through the woods towards the car when we heard the engine again. It was coming from our car. “What the…?“ As we made our way slowly through the trees, the quad sped off down the road. Then it had become apparent what he was doing - letting the tyres down on our car!

Absolutely epic experience from start to finish. I know a lot of it is this amazing building. But TBH most of it was the amazing company. Three great mates, all bought together from the love of this hobby, and this forum.

Oh and some video of the day here:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj1rRsscZys[/ame]

Superb set there chap and this explore is defo one I won't forget for sometime to come. Heart pounding and summed up superbly well by UrbanX recently, if we are lucky he may impart part of the quote on us later Here are some of mine:















































Superb explore, superb company and better company on any explore is hard to imagine.

''our legs becoming moist''

''and we were all panting for breath''

'' The moisture on our legs from the lush foliage was soon met by the sweat rolling down our back''

''Then, she reveals herself to you. Not like a flasher. But like a careful burlesque dancer who has learnt the art of revelation''


Erm, have you recently been reading 50 Shades?

Ha ha that was the quote of the day, during our erm...shower scene:

"This is 50 shades of wrong"

WOW! What a cracking set of pics guys!

Lovely place with a nice view,

Lovely place isn't it!

Where did you find the period photo Urban-X? that#s superb. It really shows how beautiful it has been, and not so long ago either.

To be honest, and that's not due to the poster, I prefer the last serie. I'm a huge fan of post-processing and the toning brings out more of mirande.

Next time guys, park at the nearby castle and take a little hike...

You'll end up on the back side of miranda. It's a climb (part of the fun) but nobody will know your there.... It's a tourist location so a strange plate won't draw the attention...

If you do the climb, watch your step... I personally slided down about 10 meters (had a bruis across the (rather big) belly)

Great report & pics even the DVD of the roof shots had me feeling dizzy,well done lads.

Fantastic location i loved all three sets of shots seems you all had a fun time .