Mid Wales Hospital - my first visit!

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muppix

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Hi All,

At the risk of stating the obvious, I know this place has been done to death but it was my first 'real' explore and as such I thought I'd share. Visited with Tripleoptics in January 2010.

Overly cautious as only a pair of real noobs can be, we'd earmarked a potential parking place on site and decided to drive through first before committing to park, but spotted a red car in our spot already and a lady walking a couple of whippets. We stopped next to what we took to be her car and got the camera gear assembled by the time she was returning with her dogs. Leaving the bags and tripods in the car, we made to casually stroll around the site with our compacts in our pockets, and stopped to chat to the lady and to fuss over her doggies. I really wanted to get a feel for how the locals would react to a couple of guys just looking around, and she told us a bit about the history of the place and encouraged us to have a look around the outside, but warned against venturing inside. I got the feeling this was more for concern over our safety rather than the typical "you can't do that because the sign says so" attitude that I was prepared for. Having reassured myself that there'd be no problem we said goodbye and had a decent wander around the place, including a very brief look inside before venturing back to the car and fetching our heavy bags.

Walking through the site and then the buildings I began to feel angry at the deterioration cause by the removal of so many roof tiles. To me it was the equivalent of cutting a noble animal's throat just enough for it to slowly and unnecessarily bleed to death. And for what? A quick profit with no regard for the consequences, that's what. How hard would it have been to replace the expensive tiles with some cheaper ones, sit on the investment for 5 years, and then sell it as a functioning complex? Sometimes it's hard to see what's greater, stupidity or greed.

I digress. We spent about 4 hours inside, generally squelching over sodden ceiling tiles and being dripped on. (The ones right down the back of the neck are the best, aren't they?) It was harder work than I imagined it to be because I didn't want to put my camera bag down anywhere and was also carrying a fairly large tripod, but even so the time slipped by fairly quickly. I suppose the one saving grace was that there was only very minimal graffiti and not as much arson as there could have been, although the air of something beautiful in the last stages of its life was apparent in all of the rooms.

On leaving we saw a couple of lads in an upstairs corridor; the first one ducking quickly away in a hope-he-didn't-see-me way as soon as our eyes met for only a split second, the second one saw my grin and was also mid-duck when he realised it was too late, so he waved at us. Would have been good to stop and chat, but we'd had enough by then and they must have just arrived, parking their car right outside the main reception entrance. (Was it you?) We also met another urbexer, someone closer to our own ages, who chatted openly about the place and showed us some photos from his camera. He too was just getting started with his mission, so we bade farewell and left.

So, what have I learnt from my first "explore"? (Still can't bring myself to use that term without rolling my eyes - as if nobody's ever been there before!)

  1. You're more nervous than you need to be, relax and stay focused.
  2. Being there is a privilege, not a right. Treat the place with respect.
  3. Try to remember the way out. Wandering about looking for an unknown exit does not help with point #1.
  4. Wear old clothes. A wide-brimmed hat would have helped with drips.

Finally, I'd like to share something that shook me a little bit, because I'm not one who's generally easily shaken. Later that night, I'm back at base and looking through the day's photos. Maybe I'm too anal or maybe I just take too many photos, but if I shoot - say - 300 pics then it takes me about 4 or 5 hours to rate, tag, straighten and categorise them. I listen to music while doing this, and on the evening in question I'd hurriedly dialled in "chill-out" as a genre and left the media centre to shuffle through 1,200 relaxing tracks at random. Get this: a couple of hours into the session I was pouring over a dozen or so images of the ballroom, when the music starts to skip and judder, as it might if you'd badly downloaded a track from somewhere, which I had't. Annoyed, I reach for the remote and prepare to delete the offending piece, until I notice its title. Haunted Dancehall by Sabres of Paradise. I kid you not.

Anyway, I'd copy and paste some history here, but you probably know it already. I'd also post a load of pictures, but having just uploaded them to my website I don't see why I should repeat the process for Flickr. Instead I'd like to share one picture from this place, the Mid Wales Hospital, and one picture from St. Athan Boys Village, which we also visited on this mission. If you'd like to see more then you're very welcome to stop by my website.

Thanks for reading!

M.

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Some nice shots there, put some more on here though............

What day were you there, might know some of the peeps there
 
As Vmlopes said,please add some more pics ok,as you have put a lot of written effort into your experience only to cut it abruptly short with the visuals.
 
I haven't seen a Mid Wales report for a while so it's good to see it's still there and not suffering more random demolition.
 
I haven't seen a Mid Wales report for a while so it's good to see it's still there and not suffering more random demolition.

No, they've stripped the roof to let the elements demolish it for them, the main hall is a really sad sight, it like building cancer slowly destroying the recently mint main hall ceiling:(
 
It's the way to go when you want a building to deteriorate quicky.:(
The demolition I heard about sounded like them ramming bulldozers into any given part of the hospital without a care.
 
You have a really good eye, composition and colours are great. Great pics to a great report. Just because somewhere has been done to death, it's all in the eye and you have shown the place in a different light. Enjoyed the first two was disappointed that there were no more at first. Don't hold back next time!!
:)
 
Thanks for the positive comments everyone, it's really appreciated.
Here's to many more such missions!

m.
 
Great shots, this one is on my to do list!. The church in pic 1 bears a striking resemblance to the one in St. Athan Boys Village, I had to do a double take at first. Very Impressive
 
Thanks Scruffy, that is the church at St. Athan's. :)

It was Cogito's photos of that place which convinced me to add St. Athan's as a destination on the same outing, seeing as it was "on the way" from home in London. Glad that I did, got some great off-camera flash pics there.

m.
 
Thanks Scruffy, that is the church at St. Athan's. :)

It was Cogito's photos of that place which convinced me to add St. Athan's as a destination on the same outing, seeing as it was "on the way" from home in London. Glad that I did, got some great off-camera flash pics there.

m.

That's actually a fair old diversion! Shame it ain't what it used to be, numerous buildings have been demolished since my ageing report, and in the last few months to more buildings have been subject to two arson attacks. Although having spoken to site security a few times I get the impression that both have been carried out by the owners on some of the asbestos based buildings in an ill thought out attempt to reduce demo and removal bills. Sad times.
 

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