Report - West park Hospital Staff social club - September 17 - Epsom

[pigeonboy]

West park social club
September 15th 2017

History
During the 1970's, accommodation for the staff of west park hospital was erected to the north of the site, along with their own little sports and social club. it stayed open for 9 years after the hospital closed in 1999 till 2007/8 as a general public pub, eventually shutting its doors due to financial difficulties.
I recently had a chat with the current site owner who told me he had purchased the building and its land from the NHS last June, he planned to demolish it and build a very large and impressive house, however he has recently changed his mind and is attempting to once again sell the site on to developers. He is aware of the state of the building and said it does not bother him as it will inevitably be knocked down and all its contents scrapped. However i must pass on his advisory message that this site is unsafe, it is literally falling apart, while in there i heard countless squeaks and cracks coming from all corners of the building, mostly the ceiling.

The explore
This site has gone impressively downhill since @Gromr123 's report back in February, its almost an entirely different place now, children and paranormal groups constantly kicking new ways in and spray painting poorly crafted graffiti / demonic symbols. I like this site because i can (and do) visit it almost weekly as things are always being moved around, and there's always something new to see. making it just as interesting every time, despite it still being the same site.

Photographs
I'll try to cut the 'artistic' pictures to a bare minimum and just show you what this site is all about

1. A tree has now grown in-front of the main entrance, however this is no longer the way in anyway

2. Truly trashed

3. Hard to correct the focus in pitch black

4. Staff area with a very nice carpet

5. The main hall

6. Although its just the Paranormal groups, the satanic graffiti did make me feel uneasy

7.

8.

9. Ouija board settings?

10.

11. Kitchen area with many bank issued money clips

12.

13. A nice safe to round things off

Hope you enjoyed the report criticism and general thoughts appreciated in the comments
-PB​

 

[Oxygen Thief]

Jeez how is that even still there?

 

[pigeonboy]

Jeez how is that even still there?

You tell me, a decade of dereliction, im surprised its still there too aswell as the fact that it hasnt been burnt down

 

[Lord Oort]

More amazed that the snooker tables are there tbh, they're still well worth restoring.

 

[klempner69]

Never knew about this..great little report fella

 

[Grom]

This place is on borrowed time, won't be long surely till it's either burnt down or demolished. I'm aware of some para's that go here almost weekly apparently lol.

 

[EOA]

When you need to focus in the dark, shine your torch on the place you want to focus on and use live view to correct the focus. Switch from autofocus to manual and then take your snap

 

[pigeonboy]

When you need to focus in the dark, shine your torch on the place you want to focus on and use live view to correct the focus. Switch from autofocus to manual and then take your snap

Im always on manual, i do need a better torch though

 

[EOA]

Im always on manual, i do need a better torch though

You focus manually or do your settings manually? I tend to do my settings manually, but focus I generally (few exceptions) just leave to the camera.

 

[Grom]

You focus manually or do your settings manually? I tend to do my settings manually, but focus I generally (few exceptions) just leave to the camera.

Also shoot at F8 or F11 if you aren't already. Everything will be in focus then. The exposure will be 10-30 seconds, allowing lots of torch wiggling to get the lighting perfectly even and spread out.

 

[pigeonboy]

You focus manually or do your settings manually? I tend to do my settings manually, but focus I generally (few exceptions) just leave to the camera.

Ahh im usually always on manual iso, aperture, focus, shutter speed, exposure, everything. Want to teach myself to learn my camera inside and out

 

[EOA]

Ahh im usually always on manual iso, aperture, focus, shutter speed, exposure, everything. Want to teach myself to learn my camera inside and out

Yeah, that's fair enough. I didn't mean use automatic for your settings (you'd be hard pressed to do that in the dark anyway), I meant switch your focus from autofocus to manual on the lens once you have got your focus as you want. If you use automatic focus it can sometimes change, coming out of focus, or the shutter won't fire because it can't see anything. So, when you're torch wiggling it always makes sense to flick your lens to manual after you have used autofocus to get your focus. I just took using manual settings (shutter speed / aperture / ISO) for granted if you were torch wiggling.

 

[pigeonboy]

torch wiggling.

Ive never actully thought about that, ive got a revisit to an underground site planned and i may try that out, drop me a pm