H.M.S. Ganges - Dec 15

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ReverendJT

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HMS Ganges History.

This has been well documented so I will give a brief overview.

HMS Ganges was a Royal Navy Training Ship in 1865 that was moored in Harwich Harbour and later shored at Shotley and remained in service until 1976. In 1907 the 143 foot (44m high) mast was installed, taken from an old steam Corvette HMS Cordelia. A school dedicated to Signalling was built in 1909 with a floating dock built in 1913. Around 150,000 boys aged 15-17 were trained here.


This is my first report on this site and indeed ever about Urban Exploration. I enjoy it for the photography aspect first and foremost, although I also find the history of these derelict places extremely interesting. Apologies if some of my images come across a little “Arty-Farty” I try to keep them as accurate to what I saw as I can although I may get a little carried away at times.

Heading to the site, we were counting down the miles until finally that infamous mast came into view. As soon as it did, the stomach started churning and the urge to park up and dive over the fence was hard to supress however we knew if our visit was to last, we needed to be a little smarter than that. We surveyed the perimeter first by driving around what we could see then by parking up in a nearby housing estate and biting the rather wet and cold bullet and walking it in the rain for a closer look. I was surprised by the evidence of previous visitors and was quite confident we would find an easy access point, and that we did. Once we entered the site, we made our way south towards the southernmost of the 2 water towers on site. As you can see the weather wasn’t great and although I had taken the time to waterproof my equipment, water spots were in the end pretty much unavoidable.








We carried on south into what we assumed was Accommodation, where we came across this lodging signed as “Frobisher” which from limited research, was a division of trainees on site. (Again, Please excuse Water Spots)






We found that every building in this area was tightly sealed althought the odd broken window showed a peek of what was inside.





We headed back north towards the mast, I was shocked at just how big it was up close.









We’d decided that that was enough of the smaller buildings and that it was time to head over to the larger structures on the north side of the site, however how we got there was a point of contention between the 3 of us. I wanted to track around the east side of the site through the undergrowth which admittedly would be a nightmare of wet brambles however I was outvoted and it was decided we would try to head across the parade square, where we pretty much ran straight into security.

We considered running but none of us knew the site that well and we had already decided that unless we were certain we would get away there was no point; we don’t want to piss off security by playing cat and mouse in the rain just to get caught and land ourselves in trouble. As it turns out the Security Guard was a very nice chap who let us out with a smile.

A little disappointed that we had been caught before we could really get going we headed off to our next target; at least we get to come back to Ganges to finish it off sometime soon.
 
Me too, it swayed in the breeze, I wouldn't want to stand under it in a storm.. I'm not too bothered by the rain (other than the lens spots), I like to think it puts the sec off patrols.
 
Nice one! Glad you managed to see what you did!
Cracking photos and a cracking first report! :)
 
I enjoyed that Rev and I think you were right not to do a runner it only pisses off Secca, and most of em are decent folk, Thanks
 
its a shame to see the second cross piece on the mast has now fallen down :(

I climbed the mast this time last year it was a bit sketchy
 
I hope to never see such "Arty-Farty" tosh here again! Just kidding, great photos!
 

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