Who here has tinkered with Urban Exploration and what have you found?

Anything good you can recommend?

(Bit silly of me to ask this, as I’m in deepest darkest rural Wales at the mo, but we do have a few bunkers and mines to explore)

Old air raid shelters and an old ww2 communication bunker, old mines as well. I draw the line at breaking and entering though.

Ben Cooper’s your man for this sort of thing.

Had a look around a abandoned holiday camp on the Isle of Wight a few years. Found it fascinating. Was in a reasonable state of repair as well, although the weather and vandals had taken their toll.

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/

Ben’s block is ace – can’t quite remember the name of it though.

Ben Cooper’s your man for this sort of thing.

Beat me to it. You can check out his Flickr page here if you need some inspiration

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cycleologist/albums

Where are you JHJ?

Floating around in the Aberystwyth/Aberaeron/Tregaron Triangle, worrying sheep and kicking ass (friendly to donkeys though)

Tregaron 😯 shudder

Tell me about it… going to the local history society, all old dears in their 60s and 70s, reliving tales of shotgun battles and the like as the wild men came down from the hills on market day.

That’s before you take into account Operation Julie… Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and the Beatles used to come to Llandewi Brefi to get the best acid.

Always wondered why when we moved here in the 80s there was chockloads of hippies…

My dad named the pub we moved to ‘The Last Visible Dog’ in honour of the children’s book, ‘The Mouse and His Child’, but all the mystics of the area took it to signify Sirius the Dog star and hence it became massively popular.

I used to explore a lot of caves in Nottingham. The year after I did loads of that, the council started replacing a lot of iron bars with reinforced steel ones, there was hardly a set of iron bars around that someone hadn’t forced apart with a bottle jack.

At the time, having a camera was a fairly good excuse for being somewhere you shouldn’t be. Not so much nowadays. Church Rock Catacombs (they were never finished or used for burials):

I did a bit back when. Not so much now, the prospect of getting chased by junkies or metal thieves pretty much made up my mind it was a bad idea to do solo (before you get into the whole “whatif” scenario). I might go for a wander again if someone was with me…

Remember seeing some of Bens work years ago before I got on here, the Molindebar burn expedition was a good one.

Is 28dl any good these days? I remember it turned into more of an ego massage club with the ‘chosen few’ having their own forum. Ended up fracturing with Derelict Places and Deserted Places (???) starting up after people got sick of the egos and attention seekers.

Operation Julie, haven’t heard that mentioned in years.

I was born in the triangle. My nappy was used as a stash when we were visited during Julie. I’ve got some amazing pics from those days!

Tregaron

Pentref Tregaron, innit.

It’s the elephant I feel sorry for…

I do quite a bit of this, not to your scale but I’m fascinated by local history, mainly WW1 through to 60’s and disused, still standing stuff.

Currently working my way down the Essex Coast Thames out of London which means a whole load of Urban sprawl and old buildings in either decay or being used for other purposes.. Got to Canvey Island so far with all the Oil Refineries and disused Oil/Docks and WW bunkers and landing stages… bloody brilliant and also I love the way Youths have commandeered the structures and laid claim to them too..

When I’m on the coast most of the stuff in my bit I’ve long since discovered but on occasion I come across something new, which is always great.

Ben Cooper’s your man for this sort of thing.

Aw shucks, can I plug my website now? http://www.transientplaces.co.uk 😀

Though family and work mean I haven’t been doing much recently…

Used to do it as a kid in the 80s, although was generally not so urban – semirural places like old abandoned farmhouses, disused psychiatric hospitals.

My favourite was the old underground factory (and later nuclear bunker) at Drakelow nr Kinver Edge. I seem to remember there being mockup builidngs including a church or something on the top to fool any spy planes during WW2. Creepy place, miles of underground tunnels and air shafts up on top in the woods.

Old Snowhill Station was quite something too. There’s much less around these days, much demolished or modernised,

Also liked exploring gun batteries and old decaying mansions etc on holidays. Near St Nazaire I chanced upon some bombed clifftop houses, still full of 1930s carpets, furniture etc. Must admit still find it irresistible in my dotage 8)

Not exactly ‘urban’ but we had a great trip to Verdun a few years ago where I went poking around in an underground WW1 fort. Lots of old gun raising and lowering machinery etc – very interesting.

I had to pretend that ‘Danger, defense d’entrée’ meant ‘Welcome, come in and take a look around’. I expect that one can still get into a few of those old places – found a website about a lot of the old forts around Verdun recently – I want to go back and take another look!

I found Verdun to be a very dark place – makes the Somme and Flanders feel quite cheerful.

I’ve spent some time poking around in Welsh mines as well – great fun. Just take a look at the roof of any tunnel that you plan to enter and make a call as to how long it’s going to stay up before you go in! The silica mine at Glyn Neath is good for a bit of snorkelling if you fancy it – gin clear water…

Quite difficult to access covertly now but the Valley Works in Rhydymwyn Flintshire is worth a look. WW2 munitions factory and part of the Manhattan project in it’s infancy. SOme shocking history behind it, with scant regard for the safety of the locals, whilst they produced chemical weapons for the campaign.

Ravey, my uncle worked there during the war. He later moved to Whitehaven, guess why?

Wicked site Ben!

JulianA – Member

I’ve spent some time poking around in Welsh mines as well – great fun. Just take a look at the roof of any tunnel that you plan to enter and make a call as to how long it’s going to stay up before you go in! The silica mine at Glyn Neath is good for a bit of snorkelling if you fancy it – gin clear water…

Oh, yeah, forgot I did some levels in the Lakes with friends. Our hardhats and caving helmets all paid for themselves in about thirty seconds flat. We found a good one near Seathwaite with multiple levels and chambers, only one we didn’t fancy as boulders the size of cars were leaning on each other around the entrance.

@nach – car sized boulders are never going to be your friends!

Aw shucks, can I plug my website now? http://www.transientplaces.co.uk

Though family and work mean I haven’t been doing much recently…

Caldwells… *shudder* …that’s where I got chased out of! Was either going to get a kicking, robbed or both. Never again.

Combining Urbex with outstanding photographic skills: http://www.forgottenheritage.co.uk
Matt is a superb photographer, uses a Pentax 645 format digital camera, and finds some incredible abandoned buildings, and unusual sites underground.

Caldwells definitely went downhill in later years – I’ve got the model paper machine out of there in my shop, plus loads of lovely casting patterns. World’s smallest working paper machine – or it will be if I ever get around to restoring it 😀

[url=https://flic.kr/p/66jLgY]Model Paper Machine[/url] by Ben Cooper, on Flickr

Fair play ben, that looks amazing… didn’t you get some coverage in the media a short while back?

Oh and while I’m at it, where are my manners~ whereabouts are you based Pigface?

And tang, is there any chance I might have known you back in the day?

Loads in past years from a derelict mansion to mines and quarries, Llanberis slate quarries numerous times on rainy days off climbing, a tower crane climb on the Tyneside Metro site, some abandoned factories and my best ever, the disused wharves under the GMEX centre in Manchester where goods used to be trans-shipped from the canal to the Midland railway.

Yes, 28dayslater is a very cliquey website.

JHJ possibly! We moved to England in ’78. My MIL lives in Dinas on the coast, off there on Friday for a visit!