St Crispins Hospital (or the Berrywood Asylum as it was formerly known) opened up back in 1876, closing in 1995. during its life it mainly served as a mental institute, during WW1, the hospital was turned over to the military and used to treat injured soldiers. after the war it was returned to being a mental institute until its closure after the changes to the Mental Health Act went through in 1995.
I've never made a report before so please forgive if I've done anything wrong.
I've visited the place a total of four times now, three times from October to December, then again recently this month (may 2017), the interior of the building hasn't changed much since then so the images i'll be using will be snaps taken between model shoots from all four visits.
The first building i explored was one of the burned down ward blocks. Back in 2014 some 'arsonists' started a fire within the abandoned hospital that caused massive structural damage to multiple buildings. While officially it was vandals who causes the fire, myself and many others believe it was the land owners attempted to damage the building so they could get permission to demolish it, as some of the buildings on site are supposedly listed.
And ofcourse, one cannot visit st Crispins without sighing the wall....
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The next ward block has access to an extensive basement area, the tunnel itself is just high enough to walk through, but further up toward the old boiler room you have to crawl. As well as the main basement tunnel, there are also smaller tunnels under most of the floorboards that can be accessed but what I can only describe as trap doors.
The second ward block with the basement still has all three floors intact. It's been well and truly punk'd as some people say. The walls are lined with all sorts of graffiti, from the artistic to the not so much...
Probably the most iconic thing about st Crispins is the clock tower building which is currently under listed status. even though I've been to the place four times i cant help but feel a sense of foreboding every time i am in its presence.
the clock tower can be scaled via a ladder on the second floor. the clock tower itself is attached to the main hall, which was also a victim of the fire back in 2014. because of the fire all of the second floor of the building has been burned away, so to get to the ladder you may need to climb, or use the discarded piece of fence that has been dragged to the base of the tower.
View from the clock tower. They all look like ants from here!
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Well that's st Crispins. There are two more buildings, a ward block and the administration offices that i haven't put up any photos of because my hard drive corrupted last month. The site is pretty huge and will take a good three to four hours to explore properly.
As far as security goes, there are no guards, however I did run into a guy from the council on my last visit. Though he asked us to leave, i had a chat to him on the walk out, mainly about development plans for the site and how sad it is that the whole place bar the clock tower is set to be demolished sometime this year, which might be why told us we could go back in after he had left.
So I urge anyone who hasn't been here already to go check it out before it is gone.
And for those it may interest, here are some links to some more 'creative' photos I've taken in there over my past visits.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/133761809@N07/sets/72157680488185324
https://www.flickr.com/photos/133761809@N07/sets/72157673511675874
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