Hello fellow explorers, I few days ago I joined this forum and submitted a post asking if anyone knew of any abandoned and derelict asylums where I could shoot some footage to use in a music video for a song that I have recorded about Mental Health. I decided after some helpful advice on here that the best place to visit and try to explore would be St Johns Asylum in Lincolnshire. So I managed to get a friend who was in dire need to get out of our town Worthing since the lockdown and drive the 200 miles up there to see what we could find.
4 hours later we finally arrived I was on the main road still trying to spot the site when I drove past the road that leads up to the complex and spotted the building which looked like it had been fully renovated with new windows, my heart sank, a wasted journey!!??! So I did a U turn swung a left and drove up the road that leads to the site. To my delight the Whole right hand side of the asylum was still derelict.
We parked up and gained access, as we wandered in surrounded by these eerie empty buildings and looked for a way inside I felt like the place had been witness to some awful tragic goings on, it had a very strange quiet atmosphere. With all the broken windows that looked into dark rooms inside a part of me wanted to turn back and leave and my friend started to get a bit freaked out so I had to hide my concerns and put on a brave face for both of us. We also got spotted by someone as we gained access and then heard police cars in the distance once we were inside so we were both panicking that we were going to get kicked out and not get the footage that we had come so far to get. We eventually found a way in that lead on to a main stage in a huge hall, bingo! We had a look around in there, the floor was carpeted in about 3 inches of pigeon excrement and the odd dead pigeon. The stage has a whacking great big hole and is near collapse. It’s a pretty expressive space. So we shot some footage for the music vid in there and found what must of been some sort of outside walkway with old ornate metalwork above, shot some footage there and then went into the building next to the hall that has the some real derelict rooms where you can see straight up to the roof from the floors having collapsed. We found some stairs that lead up so we decided to see where they led but they only lead to a collapsed floor looking down to the rooms we had just been in.
The walls have so much character from the cold winter air and hot summer air weathering the paint work and causing it to crack and peel away from the surface.
We made our way back down and found two vast hall ways one of which had a floor missing so we went into the other which has what looks like cells where they locked people up in, they looked amazing so we shot some footage in one of those. Then the atmosphere changed as the site came under a heavy down pour of rain which made the place darker and put me on edge. We had a look around another room which looked out to the other side. Then we decided to leave, parts of the floor were missing in this hall way and had boards over them you could kind of see down into the basement area which was pitch black and must of been 9ft down. At this point I started to feel more uneasy. We came out the hall way and turned right to walk out and noticed some stairs that lead down to a door way that was open but totally pitch black, we both stopped and looked down and I said that must be the basement. I tried to get my camera torch but it wouldn’t work but I could see stuff swirling in the blackness. We walked back out into the walk way with the iron ornate beams over head. By this time it was very wet and the rain was pouring out of all the broken gutter work which I thought would be good to add to the footage so I pressed record again and this is when something very strange and scary happened that spooked us and made us leave the site immediately. I was filming a drain with water gushing out and my friend was about 5 meters behind me. All of a sudden out of nowhere behind me and what was in front of my friend was a sound that was like an odd long groaning sound like a strange animal sound. I turned around and looked at my friend who had a shocked look on his face and I said did you just fart ? He said did you just hear that noise ? I said yes I thought it was you farting he said no it wasn’t and we both knew it was time to leave. So we left feeling a bit freaked out to say the least. I caught this sound on camera but it’s mixed in with the sound of the water from the rain. we left the way we came in as we left because I thought it was a spirit I thanked the spirits for letting us film and split.
I will edit this music video with the footage that we got and will post this sound on a separate video with some other footage. After that sound I got a very strange vibe from there. We only explored about 15 percent. I will not be visiting any abandoned derelict asylums any time soon! I’ll attach some photos I took on my IPhone. Once we were back out we got talking to one of the security who hadn’t seen us he was one of the nicer security guards, a dog handler. We told him what had just happened he was really cool he said he hadn’t seen or heard of any strange goings on. He said the other security guards weren’t so cool and one even gets very aggressive. He said that loads of people come down and thought the other security guy was out of order and acting over the top towards people going in. One thing I can say is that place is definitely haunted and quite dangerous. Tread carefully
4 hours later we finally arrived I was on the main road still trying to spot the site when I drove past the road that leads up to the complex and spotted the building which looked like it had been fully renovated with new windows, my heart sank, a wasted journey!!??! So I did a U turn swung a left and drove up the road that leads to the site. To my delight the Whole right hand side of the asylum was still derelict.
We parked up and gained access, as we wandered in surrounded by these eerie empty buildings and looked for a way inside I felt like the place had been witness to some awful tragic goings on, it had a very strange quiet atmosphere. With all the broken windows that looked into dark rooms inside a part of me wanted to turn back and leave and my friend started to get a bit freaked out so I had to hide my concerns and put on a brave face for both of us. We also got spotted by someone as we gained access and then heard police cars in the distance once we were inside so we were both panicking that we were going to get kicked out and not get the footage that we had come so far to get. We eventually found a way in that lead on to a main stage in a huge hall, bingo! We had a look around in there, the floor was carpeted in about 3 inches of pigeon excrement and the odd dead pigeon. The stage has a whacking great big hole and is near collapse. It’s a pretty expressive space. So we shot some footage for the music vid in there and found what must of been some sort of outside walkway with old ornate metalwork above, shot some footage there and then went into the building next to the hall that has the some real derelict rooms where you can see straight up to the roof from the floors having collapsed. We found some stairs that lead up so we decided to see where they led but they only lead to a collapsed floor looking down to the rooms we had just been in.
The walls have so much character from the cold winter air and hot summer air weathering the paint work and causing it to crack and peel away from the surface.
We made our way back down and found two vast hall ways one of which had a floor missing so we went into the other which has what looks like cells where they locked people up in, they looked amazing so we shot some footage in one of those. Then the atmosphere changed as the site came under a heavy down pour of rain which made the place darker and put me on edge. We had a look around another room which looked out to the other side. Then we decided to leave, parts of the floor were missing in this hall way and had boards over them you could kind of see down into the basement area which was pitch black and must of been 9ft down. At this point I started to feel more uneasy. We came out the hall way and turned right to walk out and noticed some stairs that lead down to a door way that was open but totally pitch black, we both stopped and looked down and I said that must be the basement. I tried to get my camera torch but it wouldn’t work but I could see stuff swirling in the blackness. We walked back out into the walk way with the iron ornate beams over head. By this time it was very wet and the rain was pouring out of all the broken gutter work which I thought would be good to add to the footage so I pressed record again and this is when something very strange and scary happened that spooked us and made us leave the site immediately. I was filming a drain with water gushing out and my friend was about 5 meters behind me. All of a sudden out of nowhere behind me and what was in front of my friend was a sound that was like an odd long groaning sound like a strange animal sound. I turned around and looked at my friend who had a shocked look on his face and I said did you just fart ? He said did you just hear that noise ? I said yes I thought it was you farting he said no it wasn’t and we both knew it was time to leave. So we left feeling a bit freaked out to say the least. I caught this sound on camera but it’s mixed in with the sound of the water from the rain. we left the way we came in as we left because I thought it was a spirit I thanked the spirits for letting us film and split.
I will edit this music video with the footage that we got and will post this sound on a separate video with some other footage. After that sound I got a very strange vibe from there. We only explored about 15 percent. I will not be visiting any abandoned derelict asylums any time soon! I’ll attach some photos I took on my IPhone. Once we were back out we got talking to one of the security who hadn’t seen us he was one of the nicer security guards, a dog handler. We told him what had just happened he was really cool he said he hadn’t seen or heard of any strange goings on. He said the other security guards weren’t so cool and one even gets very aggressive. He said that loads of people come down and thought the other security guy was out of order and acting over the top towards people going in. One thing I can say is that place is definitely haunted and quite dangerous. Tread carefully
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:. To my friend and I when visiting, the place felt really warm and welcoming. Nothing odd or malicious throughout the trip. Although, of course, hospital urbexes always feel more sombre due to the history. But then, it was a really warm and sunny day. The place felt almost like being in an old fort or port by the sea, weirdly enough. Totally not what I was expecting. It's the Italianate architecture, it tricks you! In stark contrast to what you encountered, here was my take on the place from pre-lockdown: 
