The Orders of St. John Care Trust, Oxford - July '10

The Orders of St John is the second largest not for profit elderly care provider in the UK, owning and running 73 Care Homes in Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. I can't find any history on this particular home, but it is now owned by the council (disgraceful keeping it like this!) and not the charity. I can safely assume from the style it was built in the 70s, and judging by the visitors book it looks like it closed just before or after Christmas 2006, probably because of the changing regulations which required every room to be en-suite. At some point in the intervening years it has suffered a fire to the reception lobby and a fire in a smaller outbuilding which I didn't investigate on this trip.

Once inside, the water damage is the worst I have ever seen. The roof seems to be just hanging on in many parts so quite a large amount of plasterwork off ceilings has fallen in. Once you filter out the water damage, there really isn't a lot of chav damage and there is loads of stuff left in situ, albeit scattered around the place.

Explored on my own, without a tripod, on a rainy horrible wet day, so apologies for the quality of some of the pics as they aren't up to my usual standard.













This made me jump when I saw it!























Thanks for looking, more pics here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157624362364163/with/4790348361/

That place looks utterly miserable! A few interesting bits left though.

I knew it was missing a bit of roof from the fire as I could see it on Google Maps, but the amount of mess left from the plaster and insulation falling through is shocking, it's almost as if the water used by the firefighters seeped into every corner of the building. It wasn't helped by the fact it was raining when I visited either!

Luckily the fire doors around the lobby leading to the rest of the building did their job, and only the lobby and the offices connected to it were burnt out.

kinda sad in a way. I always find those "winged" chairs scary - old people chairs! lol interesting photos

Ownership of this building

Hi Mookster

Could I respectfully let you know that The Orders of St John Care Trust does not own this building and is not responsible for its current condition? In fact, the building belongs to Oxfordshire County Council.

Since this item popped up on Google Alerts and also shows up in Google searches for OSJCT, I'd really appreciate it if the text could be changed to reflect the fact that the OSJCT has had no recent links to this building.

kind regards,

Jan at Lava PR, on behalf of the OSJCT

LavaPR said:

Hi Mookster

Could I respectfully let you know that The Orders of St John Care Trust does not own this building and is not responsible for its current condition? In fact, the building belongs to Oxfordshire County Council.

Since this item popped up on Google Alerts and also shows up in Google searches for OSJCT, I'd really appreciate it if the text could be changed to reflect the fact that the OSJCT has had no recent links to this building.

kind regards,

Jan at Lava PR, on behalf of the OSJCT

Click to expand...

Sure thing, history and current status of the building was hard to find so thanks for clearing that up