The Infamous Manor Orphanage - Thread - Urban Exploration Resource

This location is one that I've always been aware of, for nearly as long as I have been exploring. Years ago it gained a reputation as being one of the most fiercely protected and difficult locations to do in the south of England no less. It was fitted out with a comprehensive, incredibly loud alarm system which would go off immediately upon entry, and the roughly fifteen minute window of time you had inside before security turned up to remove you became the stuff of UE legend over here a decade or so ago. Over the years the security situation changed and the internal alarms were replaced with a comprehensive CCTV and alarm system mounted on the exterior of the building, with an added loudspeaker below through which an operative would bellow at you before dispatching what became known as the 'butch lesbian' security guard who would then angrily turf you off the premises - more stuff of UE legend. At one point one of the most solidly constructed fences I've seen appeared around it, topped with copious razor wire, and in the last few years a wooden hoarding was erected across the end of the driveway as well.

Despite all of those hurdles it was still explored by a determined few, and I had always wanted to see it but whenever I'd considered it the place was always on lockdown, or something else came up for me instead. However somewhat fortuitously recently the situation changed there, and things suddenly became a lot easier. Good news for me, bad news for the building as now anyone can get in and it's deteriorating fast. Given the change in circumstances there it was high time I got my skates on and saw it, and I am very glad I did before it inevitably either burns or falls down.

The orphanage is housed in a Grade II listed manor house built in the early 19th Century. It went through numerous private owners before becoming an orphanage in 1938. During the war the children were evacuated to New York, and it became a nurses school for an asylum (the one I posted on here recently actually). Post-War, it was run as both the nurses school and orphanage however the orphanage closed in the late 1950s. The nurses school continued operations until the late 1990s when it too was closed. A few years after closure there were plans to turn the building into a rehabilitation centre for people convicted of sex offences against children, however this was vehemently opposed by the locals and the plans were abandoned in 2002. During this time period, the entire building was extensively refurbished and restored at a cost of around £3.7 million, which is perhaps the saddest single thing about the whole saga as it's now lying in ruins.

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Thanks for looking