How do you find places?

[SIMSTER2015]

Hi I am new to the Forum here and I really want to visit some abandoned places in Suffolk and Norfolk but I have no idea what is about or how to find them. I have done google searches but directions etc are vague and sketchey. Please can anyone help with some pointers to get started. Is there a good web site that gives you locations. Or a site that has maps on places where you can find them. I am not looking for anyone to say oh yeh try here..... I am asking how people go about finding these places.
Many thanks.

 

[HughieD]

Google Earth is your best friend, along with the search button on this site.

 

[krela]

Google earth, Google search, English heritage at risk register, using your eyes when you're out and about.

There's nothing that's going to hand it to you on a plate sorry.

People spend hours and hours googling, and once they have ideas they can then spend hours and hours physically trying to find places, and getting lost in the process.

 

[UrbanX]

Half the fun is finding the sites; that’s what makes us explorers. It really is a geeky hobby, and many hours of research go into finding sites.

• Just walking / driving / biking around - Number one. Always has been, always will be.
• Bing maps, See Google maps & Para 13.0 “Mapping”
• Books - Books such as “(your town) at war” will often talk about local structures. There are now a wealth of urbex specific books out there too. Beauty in Decay, Derelict London, Invisible Frontier, and of course Access All Areas. There are obviously a wealth of books on WW2, often containing maps and information which has yet to be digitised. Again books on particular Asylums, or sites like Pripyat will give you way more information than is available on the web.
• Buildings at risk register - online, and full of photos, written descriptions, and of course postcodes / grid references.
• Companies house - Which local businesses have ceased trading recently? Where were their former offices? Etc.
• Defence Estates website - UK bases are shrinking daily, and it’s all public, you just have to look!
• Ebay - maps, plans, deeds, historical paperwork, post cards, etc.
• English Heritage (and it's Scottish/Welsh equivalents)
• Estate agents - If you’re like me, you’re eye is instantly drawn to the price which is half of anything else! It’ll usually be a plot with buildings on, or a ‘property in need of renovation”
• Land Agents also specialise in development opportunities. They often produce a nice .PDF brochure too to read at your convenience.
• Face book / Twitter - We’re now connected instantly with a group of contacts around the country, and around the globe, why not use it?
• Freedom of Information act requests (FOI) - Anything that is Publicly funded (I.e. Nhs, Government, Police, Council, Army etc.) will have a FOI procedure in place. You can ask them anything, and as long as it’s not going to be too much bother (normally more than 18 hours work) they will answer it for you.

 

[Mikeymutt]

I started by googling stuff in my areas and scouring the forums.driving about I have found things..and I have found that once you start posting in the forums.facebook.flickr etc..the more people will tend to share with you..but I started with lots of hard work.and it depends how dedicated you are and determined as well.

 

[Newage]

UrbanX that just about covers it, one thing is what you want to look at, if it's a derelict house, block of flats, some old
School I would not get out of bed for that, but if it's some dark damp Cold War bunker I'm in.
So Subbrit web site covers 99% of all Cold War sites! AiX forum is great for WW2 airfields.

Or you could bribe Krela with beer and doughnuts for information.

Cheers newage

 

[krela]

Or you could bribe Krela with beer and doughnuts for information.

Me?? Firstly I don't drink, and secondly I'm almost completely clueless lol. The only thing I really know about is ww2 relics in the south West.

 

[jskinner]

Bing Birds Eye is much better than Google Earth as it lets you see the elevation of a building.

You can work out much better if it's derelict

 

[night crawler]

Get an OS map and look at that, amazing what you can see

 

[InquisitiveFox]

There are a lot of derelict churches in Norfolk (it has more than any other County I read).

I found a house out in the Fens by using clues that were in the report that was on here, the house was on a level crossing so I googled all of the level crossings in Cambridgeshire and whittled out the ones that werent in the Fens and then after a lot of obsessive google earthing' I found where it was and off we went!

As the others say, keep your eyes open, there are 3 derelict houses all within 5 miles of my house which I plan to visit to and I might actually be able to put a report up of something new as all of the places I have visited have been far better reported on by others than I could ever do with my iphone camera .

 

[InquisitiveFox]

P.S if you want somewhere to explore which is easy to find and quite near to you, Beacon Hill Fort at Harwich is so much fun and you can literally spend hours there.

People on here are very cagey about locations particularly houses which are stuffed with possessions, I can understand why although it still sends me into a googling frenzy when I cannot work out where something is!

 

[smiler]

Me?? Firstly I don't drink,

I hope the folks going to the big meet up see this statement as a challenge,

When I started out nosing around it was easier than it is now, folks weren't so damned suspicious and security guard's hadn't been invented.

If I was starting out now I'd go along to the local library and check out the city, town,county historical society, tell them your interest and take it from there, the local bat protection group are a good bet as well, they are a wee bit obsessed but as long as you follow their rules about photographing and leaving the location alone during hibernation they can put you onto some sites, Good Luck and Stay Safe.

 

[SlimJim]

A little google-fu, google maps and OS maps will put you on the well trodden urbex path. There's always clues on websites and within the forums and with a little effort, it's not difficult at all to find places. We just don't make anything obvious or discuss access to keep out the mongs and reduce the risk of damage to sites. Vandalism and lock down is widespread with all sites now, big and small, because the growth of social media and other factors have given vandals, thieves and rogue urbexers a powerful information tool. The other week on fb I saw someone bragging about how they took a padlock off with a disc cutter and referred to it as the "UE key". A few weeks before that I saw someone post a picture of brand new bolt cutters saying something like "lol gunna hav sum fun with thez". I rest my case. When you're firmly established and people have seen your photos and reports, you'll find you'll start to build a network of other urbexers, which helps in finding places a lot.

 

[krela]

I hope the folks going to the big meet up see this statement as a challenge,
.

I hope they will have enough respect for me to not.

I should probably point out that the original poster hasn't been back since starting this thread...

 

[SlimJim]

I should probably point out that the original poster hasn't been back since starting this thread...

Haha we seem to get a lot of that at the moment

 

[swozzle]

The original poster may not have been back, but as a newb to this (apart from exploring wholly alone), it gave me some pointers which will be useful, so not a wasted thread