This was an explore that was nearly three and a half years in the making before the base had even began to properly wind down it's operations. My good friend and exploring partner who lives in Bordon had known about the impending closure since 2013 and promised me that whenever the opportunity arose, he would get it sorted for us to explore it.
An awful lot happened in life and I had completely forgotten about it until one day nearly three and a half years later he sent me a random message saying we were in and just needed to arrange a date. The base had been gradually emptied out and the MOD finally handed the keys over to the developers in late June 2016 for the regeneration work to begin. By this point my friend was working with the local council as a heritage/events photographer so he was able to pretty easily arrange a visit to document the entire site prior to demolition.
We turned up one blazing July day and after being let in headed to the security building. One of the guys explained that he had keys for everything but they had been given to him all jumbled up in a big bag with only a number written on each key! So at this point I thought to myself great, we won't see anything as security on the base was pretty tight with both vehicle and foot patrols, cameras, alarms etc. However after showing us the one building he knew how to open he left us to our own devices and off we trotted. Using the instincts we had finely honed over years of exploring we managed to find a way into pretty much everywhere we wanted to see, who needs keys right?!
This base was absolutely massive. Taking the size of the Prince Phillip Barracks and the Technical Training Area into consideration it's overall probably the single biggest location I have ever explored in the UK. It was so big that on our return to document the Technical Training Area we chose to drive between buildings rather than walk. It's currently in the process of wholescale demolition, the barracks area will become the new town centre and the TTA has been turned into a business/industrial park.
Prince Phillip Barracks - There was a lot of empty rooms here, it was a while until we managed to find ways into the better stuff. As you can imagine a huge amount of it was empty accomodation rooms and associated stuff, but there was some good things hidden amongst the emptiness. Sadly the only building that had been demolished before the site actually closed was the medical building
The barracks dining hall/cafeteria had a distinctive roof covered in pyramids, it took us the longest to work out how to get into here, eventually finding a way in through the back of one of the launderettes, crazy.
In August we returned to tackle the Technical Training Area, which was probably four times the size of the barracks. Same deal as before, we turned up, let the security know we were about and then were completely left to our own devices. Using our heads and some ingenuity and just a dash of luck we managed to again see nearly all that we wanted to, although frustratingly the base theatre, strangely located right in the middle of the massive industrial buildings was absolutely sealed tight as a drum. I found this part of the site much, much more interesting as a lover of industrial architecture and dereliction. Babcock took over the running of this area of the site and used it to train recruits in all sorts of stuff from welding, maintenance, electrics, mechanics to small and large firearms.
I've had to be brutal with the photo selection here as I took so many.
The first two photos below show just one small part of the site.
Continued...
An awful lot happened in life and I had completely forgotten about it until one day nearly three and a half years later he sent me a random message saying we were in and just needed to arrange a date. The base had been gradually emptied out and the MOD finally handed the keys over to the developers in late June 2016 for the regeneration work to begin. By this point my friend was working with the local council as a heritage/events photographer so he was able to pretty easily arrange a visit to document the entire site prior to demolition.
We turned up one blazing July day and after being let in headed to the security building. One of the guys explained that he had keys for everything but they had been given to him all jumbled up in a big bag with only a number written on each key! So at this point I thought to myself great, we won't see anything as security on the base was pretty tight with both vehicle and foot patrols, cameras, alarms etc. However after showing us the one building he knew how to open he left us to our own devices and off we trotted. Using the instincts we had finely honed over years of exploring we managed to find a way into pretty much everywhere we wanted to see, who needs keys right?!
This base was absolutely massive. Taking the size of the Prince Phillip Barracks and the Technical Training Area into consideration it's overall probably the single biggest location I have ever explored in the UK. It was so big that on our return to document the Technical Training Area we chose to drive between buildings rather than walk. It's currently in the process of wholescale demolition, the barracks area will become the new town centre and the TTA has been turned into a business/industrial park.
Prince Phillip Barracks - There was a lot of empty rooms here, it was a while until we managed to find ways into the better stuff. As you can imagine a huge amount of it was empty accomodation rooms and associated stuff, but there was some good things hidden amongst the emptiness. Sadly the only building that had been demolished before the site actually closed was the medical building
The barracks dining hall/cafeteria had a distinctive roof covered in pyramids, it took us the longest to work out how to get into here, eventually finding a way in through the back of one of the launderettes, crazy.
In August we returned to tackle the Technical Training Area, which was probably four times the size of the barracks. Same deal as before, we turned up, let the security know we were about and then were completely left to our own devices. Using our heads and some ingenuity and just a dash of luck we managed to again see nearly all that we wanted to, although frustratingly the base theatre, strangely located right in the middle of the massive industrial buildings was absolutely sealed tight as a drum. I found this part of the site much, much more interesting as a lover of industrial architecture and dereliction. Babcock took over the running of this area of the site and used it to train recruits in all sorts of stuff from welding, maintenance, electrics, mechanics to small and large firearms.
I've had to be brutal with the photo selection here as I took so many.
The first two photos below show just one small part of the site.
Continued...