Military Base - (Permission Visit) - July 2016

[mookster]

Apologies for being vague with this one, it'll become clear soon below though.

 

Over three years ago now my former best urbex explore buddy in the world hung up his boots and decided (or was kind of pushed by his now wife) to give up exploring, but before he did he had been trying to fix up a visit to a huge military base he knew was closing soon. Nothing came of it back then and for a while we lost contact, although periodically he would send me the odd message here and there pertaining to this military base. He always promised me that no matter what, as soon as he was granted the go ahead he would let me know and I could join him.

 

Well, three and a half years down the line, after masses of red tape, hold ups, refusals and things elevating to the highest level of the local council he was finally granted permission and true to his word he was straight on the phone to me arranging a date that was suitable for us both. Rolling up on site it immediately became clear that the only way of ever being able to do this place is with the relevant permission, security is extremely tight and well managed with regular thorough patrols on foot and by car as well as other security arrangements in place too.

 

I think we were both fully expecting to be shadowed constantly by pen-pushing security health and safety bods from the word go considering how much time and effort and perseverance it had taken to get it sorted. However after we had finished making our introductions to the security officer, he let us into one building with a key (out of the huge bag of keys they were given with no markings on them) but after that we were totally on our own. No keys for any buildings, no real knowledge of the site or what we would find inside and no real plan. For a while I had the sinking feeling that we wouldn't get into anything that we wanted to because from the outset everything looked locked up very tight, but with some dogged persistence and some real perseverance we actually found ways into almost every building we wanted. We spent five and a half long hot hours walking miles around the site and the buildings, and there is still a second half of the site to do at a date to be organised soon.

 

So yeah, tl;dr, don't think of trying this one the 'regular' way, because you will fail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A large proportion of the rooms in some of the buildings were completely identical dorm rooms like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking, loads more photos on my Flickr ​

 

[Lenston]

Pretty cool this mate, looks massive  

 

[Lavino]

Brilliant that mate.. I well want a visit here..

 

[hamtagger]

Looks like a pretty awesome site! The perseverance paid off obtaining the permission visit in the end  

Regarding the below... If most of the buildings can be accessed the old fashioned way surely you could've skipped out on the 'permission' bit and avoided secca?

but with some dogged persistence and some real perseverance we actually found ways into almost every building we wanted

 

[mookster]

Looks like a pretty awesome site! The perseverance paid off obtaining the permission visit in the end  

Regarding the below... If most of the buildings can be accessed the old fashioned way surely you could've skipped out on the 'permission' bit and avoided secca?

Not a chance. It was under MOD ownership until two weeks ago, they still train dogs in the grounds, half the site is semi active with most of it covered by CCTV, they hold events there regularly and the patrols are extremely regular.

And more to the point the fence around the base is fearsome....

 

[Telf]

Very nice, love these places.

 

[Urbexbandoned]

That's cool, I remember reading about this and another closeby closing some years ago. Like with all sites though not impossible. 

Anyhow really nice to see something new but would have loved to have seen you do it urbex Stylee and infiltrate ninja mode. I'm sure a few people will be all over this.  

 

[DirtyJigsaw]

That is fantastic. Great photos. love the snooker table with the balls in place too. 

 

[AndyK!]

Well that's pretty impressive. Nice work with the perseverance to get in there - gaining permission can sometimes be harder than going without. I don't see any problem with that, you're still getting the same shots and the same look around if you're allowed (or manage, as in this case) to access everywhere you want to. Good job