Graylingwell Hospital had been a niggling thorn in my side from a shelved era of my exploration back catalogue for quite some time. I went through a period of concentrated hospital/asylum exploration between 2004 - 2005, seeing many fascinating buildings countrywide. Graylingwell was by no means the most elegant or architecturally lavish of the hospitals we had visited, yet we had returned to it on various occassions, why? At no point in the past four or five years had we, or anybody to my knowledge, been able to extensively explore Graylingwell's interiors. There had been a couple of occurences of folks being 'toured' around certain areas, explorers had accessed isolated rooms and outlying buildings, but security on site was and still is such that it defeats you in both the physical and mental realm.
So when it came to planning a further return trip recently, for me it was a trip focused initially on defeating the location and removing the thorn, the resulting benefit of being able to tread virgin exploration territory would be a plus. Not wanting to sound as if I'm doing the place a disservice, it is as significant as many of its contemporary asylums and as a result of being so well fortified it is in considerably better physical order.
Pic: me
I'd arranged to collect Dsankt and Zero from the local emo saturated train station to allow them to experience first hand the wonderment that is Horsham. Once they were collected we swung by Sainsburys for snacky supplies and headed down to Chichester. My resounding memory of Chichester was one of teenage misery, it having once been the locale where I heard uttered the dreaded words "It's not you, it's me", perhaps we were about to change that. As we turned off the public road and on to the hospital's driveway nothing appeared significantly changed since my last time here nigh on three years previous. We parked in such a spot as to not have the car draw any attention once we weren't present, got our minimal amount of kit together and headed out.
Pic: me
Drawing on the knowledge gained from hours of previous fruitless searching and scouring we were able to head straight towards a specific spot which we figured would herald more potential access options than anywhere else on the site. To go into great detail about access likely wouldn't be prudent, but suffice to say it involved traversing the site via some creative methods and searching out the rare chinks in Graylingwell's simple yet effective security measures. This wasn't a quick process, it was around two and a half hours since we had left the vanilla fragranced confines of the car before the three of us found ourselves stood in a musty, olive green corridor.
Pic: Dsankt
Once we were inside, my thoughts turned to my previous visits those few years ago. It dawned on me that Graylingwell had been as accessible during those early visits as it was now on this trip, Graylingwell hadn't changed, but I guess I had. In 2004 I wasn't quite so tenacious as I am now, and not quite so resourceful, it's nice to be able to recognise tangible change in my approach and exploration ability. Back in 2004 we had written Graylingwell off somewhat as a no-go, other explorers also tried, failed similarly and had it down as inaccessible. Consequently, over a relatively short period Graylingwell developed a legacy of being unexplorable and as a result all but dropped off the exploring radar, but for the occassional phantom blip. But now here we were, stood within its corridors ready for a day of exploring.
Pic: me
Tiresomely the security measures didn't stop at the exterior, we soon found that most of the internal doors were not only locked, but screwed closed with plates spanning the door and the frame thus rendering the corridor network useless as a means of accessing specific areas of the site. It was clear we were going to have a long day ahead, as to reach each place we were interested to see meant exiting and finding a new route in, even the subway system had received similar scrupulous attention and only offered us access to a few random places.
Pic: Dsankt
Pic: Zero
As our time at Graylingwell drew to a close we had been able to spend time in the Main Hall, the Projection Booth, the Kitchens, the Boiler House, various corridors, subways, a ward or two and the Patient's Bank. I hadn't taken a great deal of photographs but had enjoyed the day immensely and had a fuzzy warm glow about me knowing I'd pulled the thorn.
Pic: me
JD
So when it came to planning a further return trip recently, for me it was a trip focused initially on defeating the location and removing the thorn, the resulting benefit of being able to tread virgin exploration territory would be a plus. Not wanting to sound as if I'm doing the place a disservice, it is as significant as many of its contemporary asylums and as a result of being so well fortified it is in considerably better physical order.
Pic: me
I'd arranged to collect Dsankt and Zero from the local emo saturated train station to allow them to experience first hand the wonderment that is Horsham. Once they were collected we swung by Sainsburys for snacky supplies and headed down to Chichester. My resounding memory of Chichester was one of teenage misery, it having once been the locale where I heard uttered the dreaded words "It's not you, it's me", perhaps we were about to change that. As we turned off the public road and on to the hospital's driveway nothing appeared significantly changed since my last time here nigh on three years previous. We parked in such a spot as to not have the car draw any attention once we weren't present, got our minimal amount of kit together and headed out.
Pic: me
Drawing on the knowledge gained from hours of previous fruitless searching and scouring we were able to head straight towards a specific spot which we figured would herald more potential access options than anywhere else on the site. To go into great detail about access likely wouldn't be prudent, but suffice to say it involved traversing the site via some creative methods and searching out the rare chinks in Graylingwell's simple yet effective security measures. This wasn't a quick process, it was around two and a half hours since we had left the vanilla fragranced confines of the car before the three of us found ourselves stood in a musty, olive green corridor.
Pic: Dsankt
Once we were inside, my thoughts turned to my previous visits those few years ago. It dawned on me that Graylingwell had been as accessible during those early visits as it was now on this trip, Graylingwell hadn't changed, but I guess I had. In 2004 I wasn't quite so tenacious as I am now, and not quite so resourceful, it's nice to be able to recognise tangible change in my approach and exploration ability. Back in 2004 we had written Graylingwell off somewhat as a no-go, other explorers also tried, failed similarly and had it down as inaccessible. Consequently, over a relatively short period Graylingwell developed a legacy of being unexplorable and as a result all but dropped off the exploring radar, but for the occassional phantom blip. But now here we were, stood within its corridors ready for a day of exploring.
Pic: me
Tiresomely the security measures didn't stop at the exterior, we soon found that most of the internal doors were not only locked, but screwed closed with plates spanning the door and the frame thus rendering the corridor network useless as a means of accessing specific areas of the site. It was clear we were going to have a long day ahead, as to reach each place we were interested to see meant exiting and finding a new route in, even the subway system had received similar scrupulous attention and only offered us access to a few random places.
Pic: Dsankt
Pic: Zero
As our time at Graylingwell drew to a close we had been able to spend time in the Main Hall, the Projection Booth, the Kitchens, the Boiler House, various corridors, subways, a ward or two and the Patient's Bank. I hadn't taken a great deal of photographs but had enjoyed the day immensely and had a fuzzy warm glow about me knowing I'd pulled the thorn.
Pic: me
JD
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good stuff.
