As a little Christmas season treat to end the year with, I thought I'd find the time to make a proper actual post about what was probably the best location I did on home soil in 2022. It's since been well secured and covered in many, many cameras and external and internal alarms so it's not like it's a doable thing any more.

This massive Jacobethan style house was built in the early 1900s for a family of merchant bankers, one of whom went on to become a very famous author. It was used as a convalescent hospital from the 1930s, then a nurse's training school from the 1950s and finally from the 1970s until it closed was used by a cancer charity as their palliative care hospice. Closure was first mooted in 2011, which was then subsequently pushed back to 2016, and the charity finally vacated the building in 2020. It has since been bought by a company specialising in creating retirement villages so will likely be converted at some point in the future.

Now we get to the juicy stuff. My friends had discovered it was doable by accident, after checking it out a month or so prior to my visit, but neither of them had cameras on them. The building is filled with alarms but they said they stayed inside for about 45 minutes with them blaring away and nobody came, so I knew roughly what to expect and if it all went to plan we could be in and out within an hour and nobody should arrive. Entry went well although after getting under the fence we were surprised to find there was an external proximity alarm turned on which started bellowing at us in a robotic voice that we had been detected and security were coming, which put us a little more on edge as it hadn't gone off when my friends had been there previously. We got in without a hitch and, sure enough, after walking out into the truly spectacular entrance hall the deafening alarms started wailing. I decided at that point that seeing as much of the place as possible was preferable to setting everything up on my tripod so we all resorted to handheld shots just in case security decided to turn up. As it happens, for the hour we were inside nobody arrived to turn them off, although they did shut off a couple of times so maybe they were being monitored remotely or something, or were on a timer.

This place is utterly beautiful even with the modern partitions and care home stuff in places, it was one place I had wanted to see since the second attempt at closure was announced in 2016 so to finally see it was fantastic.

Apologies in advance for some of the shonky handheld photos!

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Thanks for looking

One of the craziest places I've seen from you! Sick set

That roof line is great! Wild place!

That roof line is great! Wild place!

Wow, what a location! I hope whatever work is eventually done on it preserves much of the structure and style, this place is a work of art.

Also, you're insane exploring for an hour with alarms going off. I get spooked when I hear a car go by.

Posted by DescentOnARope Wow, what a location! I hope whatever work is eventually done on it preserves much of the structure and style, this place is a work of art. Also, you're insane exploring for an hour with alarms going off. I get spooked when I hear a car go by.

It really does deserve a sympathetic renovation, hopefully they get rid of some of the ugly partition walls and stuff and open some of the rooms up again to what they used to be.

If I had gone in blind not knowing what to expect I would probably have run away too, however there was the reassurance from my friends that they'd been in for just under an hour previously and it was fine so I think we simply hoped for a repeat of that. That being said the noise of the alarms is one I can still hear reverberating around my head!

incredible.

You are in the UK so you probably don't risk getting SWATed when an alarm goes off like in the US. I can't imagine doing that without tripping the alarm a few times and then escaping to watch what happened.

Wow! Fantastic spot.

effing excellent

Good lord dude this is amazing!!

Stunning just stunning....picking up my jaw off ground !!

wow, this is just beyond stunning!

Thanks everyone for the kind words, I feel kind of privileged and lucky to have been able to see it before they went nuts with the cameras!

Posted by EsseXploreR Good lord dude this is amazing!!

It's one of a bunch of large manor houses in the area but this one is by far the crowning jewel of them all for sure, one of those needlessly opulent places built when money was no object.

I was waiting patiently to see more of this spot after seeing it in your YIR. What an absolutely amazing place.

My gosh, what a place!
Really looks like a film-set worth building. I try to not think about the patients who were probably thinking about their actual home, no matter how royal this place looks.

That's such a beautiful place wow. The stuff with the alarms is pretty crazy too, you're braver than me.