Leybourne Grange Asylum, Kent

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Fuzzypiggy

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This is my first post, so please forgive me if I have broken any rules, I will fix anything I have done wrong.

First derelict visit, so I picked a quiet one, after reading about Leybourne Grange on this very site, I decided to make the 60 mile drive and set off with camera in hand.

Arrived around 6am and headed in. The site is supposedly about 250 acres and be warned that Taylor-Wimpey have decided to start building new houses on the west side of the area, there are lots of those temporary wire fences up to look after building materials and diggers, etc, but I saw very little attempt at security. Stick to the south and east of the site and you can wander about without a care.

They have started to destroy the living-quarters buildings and they are about to start on the big three storey building. There was one of those huge 8ft tall skips outiside, it was full of old wood and old brick, so they are moving in.

Apart from the wind blowing in and causing noise, I got the fright of my life when I heard crunching on the broken brick and glass outside. I scooted upstairs and hid in a bathroom, waited for 2 mins while my asthma(!) calmed down. I then looked through a broken window and I saw the cutest thing. A family of foxes, the parents were teaching the cubs to hunt the hundreds of rabbits that roam all over the grounds. Fantatsic find!

All the floor boards seem to have been ripped up in all the buildings I went in and there are hundreds of nails sticking out of the concrete floors, so be warned you need very stout walking boots on which I had, no silly trainers or even Doc Martins, as you will puncture the soles in 3 secs flat!

The nurses living quarters building was still in good nick, although I was not sure, this being my first "scavange" and being on my own, I didn't want to risk falling through bad wooden floors, so I stuck to the big 3 storey building which has concrete floors.

I wandered over to the main building, being very careful to watch for any rent-a-cops, but no-one about. Sad to say the mian house was all boarded up and seems to have "sprouted" a rooftop canopy, I assume they are planning to save the building and are protecting the roof. If you go around back you may be able to scoot up over the lower roofs and into one of the few remaining open windows, but I'm not that fit anymore, so I had to leave it.

So if you plan on going, you'd best get a wiggle on and it looks like Taylor-Wimpey are progressing across the site and intend to re-develop the entire area. I really enjoyed it there, very mournful and very humbling to think of some of things that went on there. The very fact that we simply didn't know how to treat the mentally ill with compassion or care, we simply locked them away and did all manner of horrible things to cure them. We still have a long way to go, but thankfully we have started to try harder now. :(

Some of the pictures. I only uploaded the ones that showed what it looks like now, over some of the shots from other posters.

The nurses quarters, I think.
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The clock tower and this wonderful red leaved, plant thing.
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One of the common rooms on the ground floor of the 3 storey building. Those lines are hundreds of 1 inch nail heads, where the floorboards were!
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Some of the destrcution being done on the living quarters buildings.
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View from the top floor of the 3 storey buildings.
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Miracle! An intact bulb! Grafitti and destruction everywhere, but somehow the vandals missed this one, solitary bulb!
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The main building, showing the roof canopy.
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Nice shots.............not sure Leybourne was ever designated an Asylum though ???
 
Nice report FuzzyPiggy. I'll leave it to others to determine what category this is. I will vouce that its a derelict site though.

Nice overview and storyline, especially as its likely to be close to the last capture of pictures before the T & W guys get at it.
 
great place to start urban exploring this was also my first place. don't see many reports from here. get incontact with me via my website and we meet up

Kent-urbex
 

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