Report - Cane Hill Asylum, Coulsdon - June 2008

[Winchester]

Excellent stuff mate, brought back some memories. I should really get some of my old pics back up.

 

[tumbles]

Excellent stuff mate, brought back some memories. I should really get some of my old pics back up.

Yes mate..

 

[mattdonut]

lovely
one of my favourite explores of all time

 

[monk]

Amazing mate.

 

[Cloth Head]

this is awesome

 

[zombizza]

Just to make me even more jealous, give me a few reasons why this was better than say West Park (as that's all I have to compare it to really)

 

[TheTimeChamber]

Just to make me even more jealous, give me a few reasons why this was better than say West Park (as that's all I have to compare it to really)

The spacca bike tbh.

More stuff to rummage through in some of the Wards, they literally shut them down, locked them without clearing them out and walked away. The laundry was still full of equipment, it had a fully equipped morgue, an art room that was knee deep in patient art. The security was top notch and it felt like a proper achievement when you managed to make it through the fence; they patrolled so much you had to try and time this with shift changes.

I'll post a thread of my photos later this week.

 

[tumbles]

Just to make me even more jealous, give me a few reasons why this was better than say West Park (as that's all I have to compare it to really)

There was just something about Cane Hill. It was the walk from Portnalls and seeing it come into focus. It really was hidden away from the naked eye, it was a colossal place ring fenced in triple prong meaning you always had to work to get in not least with some decent security. The sense of everything lying around, possessions everywhere. West Park always had a bit of stuff in places but most of it really didn't have a connection with an individual. It just had everything - morgue, chapel, wards full of beds and personal bits, room after room. Heck even a fire station and swimming pool.

The one regret is other than archive pictures from 1960's and Cibergibbons watertower shot from 2000 is that nobody really got any pics of the hall.

 

[Winchester]

Just to make me even more jealous, give me a few reasons why this was better than say West Park (as that's all I have to compare it to really)

That's easy!

1- it was an early closure (March 1992) so as mentioned, there was loads of stuff in it and it was well decayed. Because it was administered by Bromley Health Authority under the South East Thames Regional Health authority, but also had wards allocated to Camberwell and Lewisham and Southwark authorities, there was no sense of ownership. It wasn't really a 'county' asylum' any more so without proper control, it's closure was chaotic.
2 - It had been winding down since the 1970s, with wards on the male side closing as early as the late 1960s. These were shagged through decay but generally unaffected by damp, vandalism etc until demolition. It was a time capsule in some areas.
3 - Folklore. Michael Caine and Bowie's brothers were there, and years before, Charlie Chaplin's mother. The Administrstion block features on the cover of The Man who Sold the World. It was, to some extent, culturally significant for South London.
4 - It was one of the earliest derelict asylums to appear on the internet and it grew a cult following as a result. It was iconic in urban exploring circles. The fact we're still talking about it 11 years after it was demolished is testament to that.
5 - There are very very few pictures of the place before about 2003. I feel like nobody really knew what it was like as an actual hospital. To most of us, it was a ruin. I feel that that added to the mystery.
6 - A unique design where the site was very compact. It was a proper warren of rooms and buildings which was quite hard to navigate until you got your bearings. The unusual radiating pavilion design was echoed only at Whittingham, but Whittingham felt much more spread out, like an echelon asylum. Cane Hill was gothic and felt different, both in layout, and in terms of the atmosphere of the place.
7 - Security. They knew what they were doing and weren't shy about making it known you weren't welcome there. Every visit felt like a proper mission.
8 - So many things to see. Browning ward with all the beds, Vincent Vanbrugh with the fire damage, CH Howell's epileptic ward design, the cafe, OT dept, art therapy , kitchens, admin, clock tower, water tower, morgue, burnt out hall with projection room, a magnificent chapel, the train room, dentist, post office, laundry, water tower, mounds of paperwork, the 'bike', the pharmacy, the training school.

 

[zombizza]

Ok, I am annoyingly jealous now. I feel a real itch to see something half decent again. I think its gonna have to be a trip to Europe sometime in the future to get any decent quality

 

[mookster]

West Park and Cane Hill were the two greatest of the great, arguably, but for different reasons. Cane Hill reached beyond iconic status though and rightfully so.

5 - There are very very few pictures of the place before about 2003. I feel like nobody really knew what it was like as an actual hospital. To most of us, it was a ruin. I feel that that added to the mystery.

What breaks my heart is that my friend, who took me on my first explore to Hellingly way back, he had been exploring stuff since the mid 1990s around the south and he went to CH a LOT in the late 1990s with a friend of his, and his friend he went with has got a huge stash of 35mm film photos from Cane Hill circa late 1990s but he can't for the life of him find them. If he was ever able to locate them I imagine they would be astonishing. He said that back in the late 90s early 00s the security was either bat shit mental or they really couldn't give a toss, there was a time they were caught by the guards coming through the fence and the guard, who was stoned, simply let them get on with it.

 

[Winchester]

Well that breaks my heart as well!

The only other people I can think of who might have more modern pics of the place are Ernie Townsend and Keith Boucher. Ernie worked at Cane Hill for over 20 years right up until closure, and ran a photography club. He told me ages ago that he has a lot more of Cane Hill but I don't know whether he plans to do anything with them. Keith Boucher was making a documentary back in about 2005 and according to Simon Cornwell, was given a VHS from the days before closure where they walked round some of the main areas of the hospital. The documentary never got made and I assume the VHS is in his garage somewhere.

I bet there's more than a few people in their 40s from Coulsdon who were poking round the place in the first few years after closure but before the main fence, and have something to share. I once met a couple on the footpath who said their teenage kids used to go in there in the mid 90s and they gave them a right bollocking when they eventually found out about it!

 

[tumbles]

Well that breaks my heart as well!

The only other people I can think of who might have more modern pics of the place are Ernie Townsend and Keith Boucher. Ernie worked at Cane Hill for over 20 years right up until closure, and ran a photography club. He told me ages ago that he has a lot more of Cane Hill but I don't know whether he plans to do anything with them. Keith Boucher was making a documentary back in about 2005 and according to Simon Cornwell, was given a VHS from the days before closure where they walked round some of the main areas of the hospital. The documentary never got made and I assume the VHS is in his garage somewhere.

I bet there's more than a few people in their 40s from Coulsdon who were poking round the place in the first few years after closure but before the main fence, and have something to share. I once met a couple on the footpath who said their teenage kids used to go in there in the mid 90s and they gave them a right bollocking when they eventually found out about it!

Cybergibbons Flickr sadly seems to have lost his 2000 stuff too - that and his shots of West Park Hall pre fire were some of my favs

 

[CalculatedRisk]

this is demolished now isnt it?

 

[tumbles]

this is demolished now isnt it?

Yep