Salve Mater Sanitorium
Queen Elisabeth of Belgium opened the Salve Mater psychiatric center for women in 1927. The center was set up by the ‘Sisters of Mercy’ on the lands owned by the counts of Spoelbergh.
Until 1997, the main building held the psychiatric clinic’s administrative offices and the sisters’ convent. Photographer Pascal Baetens made it his home base in 2003. The last patients, those of the Saint-Paulus pavillion, left Salve Mater in 2007.
The surrounding park, set up as an English scenic garden, was protected by the Administration of Monuments and Landscapes due to its rich collection of trees and plants, but has been neglected for quite some years since.
Since it closed its doors it has become a huge urbex attraction for many people near and far. The most photographed of this site is its mourge with stainless steel table. The body fridges have long gone and the rest of the main building is a mix of dereliction and lived in sections. The development of the site continues and some biuldings are now converted and being lived, others are pretty much bare inside but in a good state. However some parts are falling apart like the stairs in one building where i nearly visited the basement as they collapesed under me!
The resident artist Pascal Baetens who has set up home and galleries here is the nicest chap as we found out when we bumped into him, the stories of people having to pay to view this place are true as we witnessed about 20 Germans drapped in camera gear decending upon us. We hagled a deal as we didnt actually have enough euros so we clubed together and purchased a book of his, hence this is semi-permission as we just turned up. Granted permission to wonder free-ish is obtainable through his website www.pascalbaetens.com.
This was part of a 3 day road trip with SpaceInvader and Urbanginger who are top guys and we had an absolute blast, the rest of this road trip can be found somewhere on here.
On with the photos.
We found a false leg in the attic!
Yes that is a moustache :crazy
That was a few photos of Salve Mater, hope you like what you see and to others thinking about a visit, get out there and do it, Belgium is epic.
Once again thanks for having us Belgium, see you in a few weeks
sx-riffraff
aka skyline ue
layout got screwed up so lots of scrolling, fu*k it.
Queen Elisabeth of Belgium opened the Salve Mater psychiatric center for women in 1927. The center was set up by the ‘Sisters of Mercy’ on the lands owned by the counts of Spoelbergh.
Until 1997, the main building held the psychiatric clinic’s administrative offices and the sisters’ convent. Photographer Pascal Baetens made it his home base in 2003. The last patients, those of the Saint-Paulus pavillion, left Salve Mater in 2007.
The surrounding park, set up as an English scenic garden, was protected by the Administration of Monuments and Landscapes due to its rich collection of trees and plants, but has been neglected for quite some years since.
Since it closed its doors it has become a huge urbex attraction for many people near and far. The most photographed of this site is its mourge with stainless steel table. The body fridges have long gone and the rest of the main building is a mix of dereliction and lived in sections. The development of the site continues and some biuldings are now converted and being lived, others are pretty much bare inside but in a good state. However some parts are falling apart like the stairs in one building where i nearly visited the basement as they collapesed under me!
The resident artist Pascal Baetens who has set up home and galleries here is the nicest chap as we found out when we bumped into him, the stories of people having to pay to view this place are true as we witnessed about 20 Germans drapped in camera gear decending upon us. We hagled a deal as we didnt actually have enough euros so we clubed together and purchased a book of his, hence this is semi-permission as we just turned up. Granted permission to wonder free-ish is obtainable through his website www.pascalbaetens.com.
This was part of a 3 day road trip with SpaceInvader and Urbanginger who are top guys and we had an absolute blast, the rest of this road trip can be found somewhere on here.
On with the photos.
We found a false leg in the attic!
Yes that is a moustache :crazy
That was a few photos of Salve Mater, hope you like what you see and to others thinking about a visit, get out there and do it, Belgium is epic.
Once again thanks for having us Belgium, see you in a few weeks
sx-riffraff
aka skyline ue
layout got screwed up so lots of scrolling, fu*k it.
