Leeds Int pool nocturnal explore

[phill.d]

I'll post a few pics of the leeds International pool I got from a night visit. The place is pretty good at night, the power supply still functions for certain services in the building. The lights seem to be on a timer, if you suss out the pattern you can get some good results. the random lights switching on and off cover any light painting activity too. The place is worth a look for the servive and boiler room areas below. Mazes of tunnel and passages galore if you can find your way around. I learned from a previous visit that access to the roof is via one lift only. There are no stairs up there. We tried the lift to see if it still worked. My mate put one foot in it and it dropped 6 inches. That was enough to abort that idea.
on with the piccies.

You can see several lights already working away in the pool. Nice to cover any torches up.

WOW!!
Suss out the light pattern and you can get some good shots. I warmed up the accumulator sculpture with a bit of torch work.

A friendly Northern welcome lol

We went down to try out some light painting in the massive boiler and pump rooms.

The poor old clown discarded down there looks a bit sinister by torch light. Anyway I felt a bit sorry for him and brought him home lol.

I've a load of shots including the roof and full history of the place here
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=265602590&blogID=361721416
There's also the story behind the architect poulson who caused a major political scandal.
Thanks for looking

 

[pdtnc]

looking good there....

 

[Earth Worm Jim]

Groovy.

 

[natalion]

Wow looks really cool!

Great shots with the torch =]

 

[cinestep]

Very neat work. Thank you for a great post.

 

[ks781]

nice work mate! I went there tonight hoping the indoor lights would be on and they were all off, very very annoying, got a few nice shots but I've been in the day so it almost felt like a waste of time without the lighting! Tried to find the switches but they all seemed to be non functional :/

edit - just read about the timers. I was there around 11pm at night, I suppose its all just pot luck....they were on in the day time!!

 

[missfish]

niiiiiice light work there

 

[BigLoada]

Thats a pretty funky building. And wow phill, uber cool lightpainting in the boiler room. You keep getting better all the time mate

 

[phill.d]

Thanks for all the comments guys. The place is well funky yes.
I've been in a few times now. The night time (if you suss out the Saturday night fever disco lights) really does make a difference. The service areas are great. There's a load of pics of the place circulating on the net. I.M.O it's best to get this place done soon if anyone wants it. I can see the local rag picking up on it's trashed condition and the place getting shut up as tight as a ducks ass!

 

[fire*fly]

Oooh I love pools, great pictures It looks like it was a good pool in its day

 

[phill.d]

Thanks Firefly. The pool is certainly an impressive structure.
To be honest the pool has always been hard work to maintain. it suffered badly from concrete defects. When it opened it had to be shut a further 6 months for repair work. The pool was intended to be to Olympic standards. Apparently it measured one inch too short and never lived up to full expectations. The story goes that when the tiles were added it was 1'' too small. The councils 'official' reason was that it was part of a planned cost cutting measure lol

believe what you like there!

My mate has been in after these shots were taken. He says there are no lights functioning at all now. Even the hum in the boiler room has stopped. I don't know what's happened there then.

 

[ultrix]

The pool is now being visited by security staff from Leeds city council.
Tonight Awwrisp and I called in at the pool, after an unsuccessful visit to the Odeon in Bradford. We hadn't even got in the place before the security guard turned up, in a car marked like a police car but without the blue lights. He must have seen us from across the carpark, but we legged it back to our car while he was parking up around the corner. We watched and he didn't stay long, not more than 10 minutes, just long enough to walk around the building and check the locks.

Also, we can confirm that the lights in the main pool were switched off.

 

[phill.d]

Thanks for the update Ultrix. I kind of guessed the clamp down would happen. The place is explored on a daily basis. Kids get in and use it as a skate board park. I guess that's the reason for the lights cut too.

 

[tarboat]

Great work documenting this place and quality photography too.

 

[nighthawk]

sorry to hear

Sorry to hear you didnt get in Ultrix. I went in on Monday night. I pulled up in the car park and saw one of those council security cars parked up so I drove around leeds for 30 mins and came back and they were gone.
We then got in no problems but my explore buddy heard "smack heads" banging on the frount doors whilst me and another explorer were in the boiler room.

 

[thompski]

Those are some cracking pictures phill.d, really seems a photogenic place with all those strong geometric angles (I think thats the right terminology).

Shame its become a bit more difficult to access, its definately something i'd love to see first hand!

 

[boxerheaven]

nice pics glad you rescued the clown !! looks totally trashed now shame

 

[phill.d]

From what i can see the security seems to be a recent random patrol. I think Ultrix just timed it bad. There are boat loads of pics on flickr with kids climbing out of windows 30' up. Skateboading and bike riding in the pool. There's even one picture titled.' Breaking into the pool' and showing were they got in. I guess this hasn't helped us guys!

 

[ultrix]

From what i can see the security seems to be a recent random patrol. I think Ultrix just timed it bad. There are boat loads of pics on flickr with kids climbing out of windows 30' up. Skateboading and bike riding in the pool. There's even one picture titled.' Breaking into the pool' and showing were they got in. I guess this hasn't helped us guys!

I would agree with you that it was just bad timing last night, Awwrisp and I said that to each other while we sat in the car watching the security guard walking around rattling gates etc. We weren't disappointed, since the visit to the pool was a last minute decision made while we were on the way home from Bradford and we didn't intend to stay long anyway.

 

[phill.d]

Was it last night you went Ultrix? i know 2 guys who got in much later. They did hear a lot of noise in the pool area, there were 2 guys with bags on the big stairs. They were'n't explorers by the look of it. I think the place is getting frequented by smack heads. There were noises when we were in but couldn't see were they were.