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Hello again.
Here is another hospital report.
I visited Thornton last February and it was my first explore done with another fellow explorer (non-member). In retrospect, the place is not all that interesting as a whole, but at the time it the first hospital I had the chance to get into, and it was a place of firsts.
Thornton, located in Fife in Scotland, was a fever hospital. It is hard to find a lot of information online.
Here is one bit of info I located:
These buildings were built as part of an isolation hospital (serving mainly patients with diphtheria, scarlet fever, meningitis etc); later one building was used as a hotel but now the whole place seems to have been abandoned.
[link here]
It has also been made known that after the hospital was shut down, the place served as a children's home and later they used it to park lorries used by Strathore Plant Hire Ltd. If you consider the hotel business that also ran for a few years, one can understand why this place holds a million of random stuff piled up and laid to rest there, from lorry tires and magazines, to toys and a wheelchair.
The whole complex is right on Strathore road, but apart from a house where people still live in, there is nothing else in the vicinity. So if you are relatively quiet and avoid attracting the attention of the residents of that house, it is a very easy explore.
We parked on the side of the road and headed up the muddy pathway leading to the west side of the complex. No big drama, very easy to get instant access (no fences etc).
The place has been left to rot and fall into the hands of vandals for some time now and it shows right from the get go. What is also clear is that you can find many interesting things to shoot.
Love switches
One of the big rooms.
The typical hanging apparatus.
A red door always makes the explore more exciting.
We spent quite some time there, mostly because we were on a mission. As Di had been there before, she knew of a wheelchair that was said to be around. In older reports we had spotted the old wheelie and we really wanted to locate it. Weirdly enough, the chair at some point had decided to play the role of the Chief and McMurphy and we found it in the position below:
It took about 30' to free the wheelie. I must say I felt a far more greater sense of accomplishment having dislodged the tree branches that had managed to grow through the wheel's spokes, than when I got my master's degree. I literally wanted to lift the chair over my head and scream. Instead we rushed it into the almost perfect corridor and had a bit of fun.
One of the 2 corridors.
The other corridor.
Another interesting bit was when walking around a room I suddenly, in a very bullet-time slo-mo effect kinda way, felt my right foot sink into the floor. It was my first ever experience of the sorts and the feeling was a mixture of "what the heck is going on here?" and "should I laugh or turn white?". It's funny that several explores since then and some really bad floors, stepping on a rotten floor that feels like a waterbed has become such a familiar feeling.
Psycho shower.
Silent hill.
Just piles of trash upon trash upon trash...and a chair.
And a baby chair.
After running through all the hospital buildings we moved to the hotel that was in the worst shape of all as clear indications of a fire and a collapsed roof invited us in. We both climbed halfway up the stairs but I believe we made the right call of not trying the first floor. When you feel you can squeeze your fist through the floor I think it's a sign not to continue. But then again who knows...that's the beauty of this I guess. The fact that you really can't tell most of the time so you just use your gut feeling at any given moment. Maybe a different day I would have tried it.
Bar fight results.
Wallpaper delight.
The hotel was quite interesting with its big bar/restaurant bit where tv stands where still screwed on the walls and several curtains still hanging untouched by the fire. The kitchen was also quite cool with nice peeling. Generally all the buildings had some really nice wall decay.
Thornton is one of those places where setups are so over-done that I guess it might end up feeling too staged to satisfy you. Don't get me wrong, I loved the glow worm doll in the baby trolley and other stuff, but yeah, I always prefer experiencing something that nobody has messed with, despite the obvious value from a photographer's point of view.
Like this one, one of the best setups I have encountered.
After taking a few more exterior shots (nice cloudy day) we left Thornton. I can safely say I won't be revisiting ever. However, I am really happy I got that under my belt.
For more photos on Thornton and other explores check my facebook page. Thanx for reading!
Here is another hospital report.
I visited Thornton last February and it was my first explore done with another fellow explorer (non-member). In retrospect, the place is not all that interesting as a whole, but at the time it the first hospital I had the chance to get into, and it was a place of firsts.
Thornton, located in Fife in Scotland, was a fever hospital. It is hard to find a lot of information online.
Here is one bit of info I located:
These buildings were built as part of an isolation hospital (serving mainly patients with diphtheria, scarlet fever, meningitis etc); later one building was used as a hotel but now the whole place seems to have been abandoned.
[link here]
It has also been made known that after the hospital was shut down, the place served as a children's home and later they used it to park lorries used by Strathore Plant Hire Ltd. If you consider the hotel business that also ran for a few years, one can understand why this place holds a million of random stuff piled up and laid to rest there, from lorry tires and magazines, to toys and a wheelchair.
The whole complex is right on Strathore road, but apart from a house where people still live in, there is nothing else in the vicinity. So if you are relatively quiet and avoid attracting the attention of the residents of that house, it is a very easy explore.
We parked on the side of the road and headed up the muddy pathway leading to the west side of the complex. No big drama, very easy to get instant access (no fences etc).
The place has been left to rot and fall into the hands of vandals for some time now and it shows right from the get go. What is also clear is that you can find many interesting things to shoot.
Love switches
One of the big rooms.
The typical hanging apparatus.
A red door always makes the explore more exciting.
We spent quite some time there, mostly because we were on a mission. As Di had been there before, she knew of a wheelchair that was said to be around. In older reports we had spotted the old wheelie and we really wanted to locate it. Weirdly enough, the chair at some point had decided to play the role of the Chief and McMurphy and we found it in the position below:
It took about 30' to free the wheelie. I must say I felt a far more greater sense of accomplishment having dislodged the tree branches that had managed to grow through the wheel's spokes, than when I got my master's degree. I literally wanted to lift the chair over my head and scream. Instead we rushed it into the almost perfect corridor and had a bit of fun.
One of the 2 corridors.
The other corridor.
Another interesting bit was when walking around a room I suddenly, in a very bullet-time slo-mo effect kinda way, felt my right foot sink into the floor. It was my first ever experience of the sorts and the feeling was a mixture of "what the heck is going on here?" and "should I laugh or turn white?". It's funny that several explores since then and some really bad floors, stepping on a rotten floor that feels like a waterbed has become such a familiar feeling.
Psycho shower.
Silent hill.
Just piles of trash upon trash upon trash...and a chair.
And a baby chair.
After running through all the hospital buildings we moved to the hotel that was in the worst shape of all as clear indications of a fire and a collapsed roof invited us in. We both climbed halfway up the stairs but I believe we made the right call of not trying the first floor. When you feel you can squeeze your fist through the floor I think it's a sign not to continue. But then again who knows...that's the beauty of this I guess. The fact that you really can't tell most of the time so you just use your gut feeling at any given moment. Maybe a different day I would have tried it.
Bar fight results.
Wallpaper delight.
The hotel was quite interesting with its big bar/restaurant bit where tv stands where still screwed on the walls and several curtains still hanging untouched by the fire. The kitchen was also quite cool with nice peeling. Generally all the buildings had some really nice wall decay.
Thornton is one of those places where setups are so over-done that I guess it might end up feeling too staged to satisfy you. Don't get me wrong, I loved the glow worm doll in the baby trolley and other stuff, but yeah, I always prefer experiencing something that nobody has messed with, despite the obvious value from a photographer's point of view.
Like this one, one of the best setups I have encountered.
After taking a few more exterior shots (nice cloudy day) we left Thornton. I can safely say I won't be revisiting ever. However, I am really happy I got that under my belt.
For more photos on Thornton and other explores check my facebook page. Thanx for reading!
