After today's main adventure I popped in to West Park, exactly 4 years and 3 months since my first visit in 2009.
I guess part of it was closure for me on the place that seriously got me into this big time, prior to my first visits to West Park in August 2009 I had visited Hellingly and Fullers Earth in June, however my six visits to West Park between August and October of that year really cemented in my mind that this was for me. After our quick mortuary detour we had a little drive around the site, to see the (admittedly brilliantly done) conversion of the admin block, as I pointed out to my mate who'd never seen West Park as anything other than a building site what each building used to be and what used to be inside it, and pointed out the rough location of the now demolished buildings.
I won't say it was entirely sad for me, as a lot of the place has been saved in relation to other asylums and indeed others in the Epsom Cluster, but it was in a way as loads of good memories came flooding back in a wave of nostalgia.
It was also interesting for me to notice that the room only accessible through a hole in the stud wall was the old slab room due to the gulleys in the floor. The partition wall was put in after the slabs were removed, I believe at the same time the original chapel was demolished in the 1980s.
Farewell West Park, for the final time.
I guess part of it was closure for me on the place that seriously got me into this big time, prior to my first visits to West Park in August 2009 I had visited Hellingly and Fullers Earth in June, however my six visits to West Park between August and October of that year really cemented in my mind that this was for me. After our quick mortuary detour we had a little drive around the site, to see the (admittedly brilliantly done) conversion of the admin block, as I pointed out to my mate who'd never seen West Park as anything other than a building site what each building used to be and what used to be inside it, and pointed out the rough location of the now demolished buildings.
I won't say it was entirely sad for me, as a lot of the place has been saved in relation to other asylums and indeed others in the Epsom Cluster, but it was in a way as loads of good memories came flooding back in a wave of nostalgia.
It was also interesting for me to notice that the room only accessible through a hole in the stud wall was the old slab room due to the gulleys in the floor. The partition wall was put in after the slabs were removed, I believe at the same time the original chapel was demolished in the 1980s.
Farewell West Park, for the final time.
