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The first [S-P] summer roadtrip kicked off properly, in terms of exploration, as soon as we arrived with twisted nerves at West Park asylum. We’d failed to gain access to the previous days site – Hellingly, and so it was essential that we made the most of West Park. Failure here would have doubtless required that we hang up our exploring wigs and call it a day, who wants a no-score roadtrip? However, despite the nerves, the sun was shining and we were well prepared, with thanks going to Sub-Urban for their excellent info. We pulled up at the parking spot near the asylum and after a preparatory flurry of bowel related activity from certain members of the team, we set off on our exploration.

It wasn’t long before we understood that this would be a memorable trip, having emerged from the treeline that surrounds this section of the hospital. We were greeted by a lonely looking patient shelter, adorned with moss and littered with the leaves of the many autumns that have passed since the hospitals closure. I’ve tried to figure out which season I most like to explore in, and haven’t drawn a single conclusion – but it’s true to say that although the hospital may have looked more desolate when framed by the barren hues of winter – the rich greenery of summer, the overgrown weeds and unkempt trees did lend the place a peaceful atmosphere, in keeping with it’s dereliction. The hot, dry weather permeated every surface we touched, crumbling, dusty surfaces giving substance to the thick, warm and dry odours of neglect. I think each of us silently considered our approach to the exploration as we moved towards the buildings – this was something not to be rushed. In bright sunlight, we wandered, dawdled, wide eyed and receptive.

We succeeded in entering through an open window in one of the inter-ward walkways, but not before a tenuous roof scramble where UncleEggMan confronted his demons in fine style, displaying admirable composure as we precariously navigated the roof tiles. Fair play to him, he’s often carrying the most equipment due to the fact that he’s the resident film-maker – and confronting the ‘height-demon’ is something best done without the added hassle of expensive cameras and tripods. After a successful landing – we were quickly inside one of the walkways and instantly captivated by the atmosphere of these immensely long passages. Winding their way almost completely around the hospital – these structures connect practically every building, but offered disappointingly little in the way of immediate access to the wards themselves. We stood in silence for a while as UncleEggMan got some footage and we took a few minutes to soak it all in. All that could be heard was a wasp further on down the hallway, beating itself senselessly against the glass in an unrelenting effort to escape this demented greenhouse.

We began our thorough investigation of every window, door and lock we could get to, hindered (And in Groobs’ case, massacred) by thick brambles. After a lengthy period of searching, CookFromFrozen managed to find an open window to Denton, Dartford, Clifton and Cranford wards. And he did this without the aid of any one of his bewildering array of techno-gadgets. Top shit. Getting in wasn’t too much hassle, despite the fact that the window was only open at it’s uppermost point, and it was halfway up the building! UncleEggMan was really ‘workin it’ now – showing his previously latent ‘drainrat’ colours. Dusting ourselves off, we were faced immediately with the first of the deeply thought provoking leftovers that seem to litter these wards.

We were in a stairwell, halfway between the ground and first floors. Looking up the stairwell, we could see a patient storeroom, where the personal effects of new admissions would have been locked away and replaced by a set of hospital whites. Coats were hung from rails, thin as tissue, poised above us like ghostly shells of the patients that used to wear them. The process of privilege denial as an institutional mandate in itself is enough to get you thinking – but the period of time that had elapsed since this stuff was last touched was even more fascinating. The air was thick with the gradual decay of the trinkets, clothes, books and photographs that filled the room. Judging by the documentation we found, it may have been over fourteen years since these clothes had been worn. I’m sure the hospital closed much later than this, but there really was nothing to suggest otherwise within this particular building. Family snapshots of nameless people were sandwiched between the rotten pages of nonsensical diaries. In some cases it was painfully obvious which subjects of these forgotten photographs were the patients who had been resident here. The suitcases that were stacked on the shelves, had at one point in the past, contained the last vestiges of someone’s pre-institutional life. Now they lay empty under blankets of dust, their revealing and unsettling contents exposed to the varying degrees of light that would filter through the windows during the many seasons that followed. I tried to think of various things I’d done since 1989, scattered memories of my own, and imagined this derelict environment in parallel during this time. Fourteen summers coming and going, winter after winter cloaking the windows of the silent room. Nothing moving… just slowly decaying.

We advanced as methodically as possible through the ward. I’ve never felt so at odds with an environment – in the best possible way. So still and silent were these rooms, that it felt like we were committing some indefinable crime, simply by walking through them. After an hour or so, having been treated to so many of the choice sights that an explorer might hope to see on an asylum trip, we discovered a particularly sinister looking corridor. Sickly pink, thick doors separated the bleak corridor from tiny rooms with heavily secured windows. There was a definite sense that we were reaching something with an atmosphere that no amount of time could dilute. And there it was. The thick, double doors to a small, cubic, padded cell. It was both instantly, and lastingly alarming. Walking into it felt wrong. It was impossible not to imagine what kind of state a patient would have to be in, to be thrown in here. It was like the soft walls and floor, now stiffened and cracking after all this time, had soaked up all that fear, primal rage and despondency and it wasn’t letting go. We stayed in there for a while, both UncleEggMan and I shutting ourselves in for a few minutes. Of all the things we could hope to find in an asylum, this would have taken some beating.

Creeping further onwards, we descended to the ground floor of the huge building, and were plunged into darkness as we entered the ward. Every window was tightly boarded, leaving no room for natural light to enter. As we moved slowly forwards, the gleaming metal of beds and various medical apparatus shone through the gloomy atmosphere, in response to our searching torch beams. It was here on the ground floor that we gained a greater understanding of why this building might have been derelict for longer than other sections of the hospital. The floor was in absolute rag-order, and at several points, most notably where there was a gaping hole as a result of fire damage, it was obvious that a fall through could be very messy. Some kind of rot had evidently crept through the whole floor structure, it made our advance slow and deliberate (like we weren’t being slow enough already!) as the floor had the consistency of some severely fragile and equally unlikely cornflake-pancake!

The day seemed to disappear in a flash, and we got the feeling that as the warm evening grew cooler and darker around the hospital, we should look for an exit. After trying and failing miserably to find an exit that would be easier than our entrance (The saying: ‘What goes up must come down!’… is simply an ideal!) we reluctantly scrambled back down the drainpipes and window ledges to the thorny recess below, and repeated our (Now polished and highly efficient, hehe) roof vaulting technique. It seemed too soon to be leaving. Too soon for us to be going back to our cars. Too soon to be saying goodbye to a place that basically had us stunned all day. For all those years that had passed over the things we had seen, our six hour intrusion seemed inadequate and disrespectful. If the exploration community loses West Park before we get the chance to go back again – yeah, we’ll be disappointed, but you’ve got to see the brighter side of such dark things I guess, and there was nothing disappointing about the fascinating and utterly captivating atmosphere we all experienced on this visit.

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