Visited with SarahSaw
Pictures are from of both of us, don't know who owns what because it was a pub day again for research
There have been a couple of very nice and tidy reports from here recently and I was particularly impressed with Maniac's report so I am going to nick some his introduction.
It's actually called Buckston Browne Farm. It was a research establishment for the Royal College of Surgeons, England from the 1930's up to the early 1990's when it closed.
The place gets its name from Sir George Buckston Browne, who was a British medical doctor and pioneer urologist in the first half of the 20th century. In 1927 he bought Charles Darwin's former home Down House and founded the Buckston Brown Research Farm in Downe in 1931. The Buckston Browne Prize is named for him. Down house is infact round the corner from the farm, the house now preserved and open to tourists, but the farm its self sits empty including it's own quite large house.
In the 1980s, the farm caused controversy because of its use of vivisection techniques, and in August 1984 it was raided by anti-vivisection activists.
This place is pretty grim really when you realise the sort of work that went on there, particularly in it's earlier days when such things wern't as tightly regulated as they are now. There's medical papers all over the internet which describe some of the research done there in quite some detail - for me it was quite uncomfortable reading some of them.
Never-the-less, it was a good explore and was worth the trip, the house is quite nice with some good features still present. The research labs are damp, dreary and quite decayed, but interesting to walk round. (snip)
Thanks Maniac, This place has the smell of death and suffering, we have been in some miserable stinking holes in our time but nothing gets close to this miserable hole of pain and suffering, you can feel it! We were to be honest pleased to get out of this one! Going to leave out pictures of the house with its accommodation. It's been very well reported before
One of many rooms like this, also glass bricks same as the wall in the ceiling. Presumably the same as a prison cell, giving some daylight but hiding the content within!
In what we suspect to be a staff common room, there was a television bracket on the wall opposite.
Size 9 anyone?
Is it still alive doctor?
Now this one is just a mystery, SarahSaw reckons its where dead animals were stored, I'm not so sure, there is no evidence of refrigeration . What you are looking threw is a reinforced sealed viewing window in a little room with a sink in it. Inside are racks and an extraction system? There is the usual hole in the floor common in these rooms for flushing away. Gas anyone?
Humm, nice
Piggery, at the back of the 'hall' is a small outside area, all the main areas have gutters running down the outsides for slopping out.
Thanks for looking.
Pictures are from of both of us, don't know who owns what because it was a pub day again for research
There have been a couple of very nice and tidy reports from here recently and I was particularly impressed with Maniac's report so I am going to nick some his introduction.
It's actually called Buckston Browne Farm. It was a research establishment for the Royal College of Surgeons, England from the 1930's up to the early 1990's when it closed.
The place gets its name from Sir George Buckston Browne, who was a British medical doctor and pioneer urologist in the first half of the 20th century. In 1927 he bought Charles Darwin's former home Down House and founded the Buckston Brown Research Farm in Downe in 1931. The Buckston Browne Prize is named for him. Down house is infact round the corner from the farm, the house now preserved and open to tourists, but the farm its self sits empty including it's own quite large house.
In the 1980s, the farm caused controversy because of its use of vivisection techniques, and in August 1984 it was raided by anti-vivisection activists.
This place is pretty grim really when you realise the sort of work that went on there, particularly in it's earlier days when such things wern't as tightly regulated as they are now. There's medical papers all over the internet which describe some of the research done there in quite some detail - for me it was quite uncomfortable reading some of them.
Never-the-less, it was a good explore and was worth the trip, the house is quite nice with some good features still present. The research labs are damp, dreary and quite decayed, but interesting to walk round. (snip)
Thanks Maniac, This place has the smell of death and suffering, we have been in some miserable stinking holes in our time but nothing gets close to this miserable hole of pain and suffering, you can feel it! We were to be honest pleased to get out of this one! Going to leave out pictures of the house with its accommodation. It's been very well reported before
One of many rooms like this, also glass bricks same as the wall in the ceiling. Presumably the same as a prison cell, giving some daylight but hiding the content within!
In what we suspect to be a staff common room, there was a television bracket on the wall opposite.
Size 9 anyone?
Is it still alive doctor?
Now this one is just a mystery, SarahSaw reckons its where dead animals were stored, I'm not so sure, there is no evidence of refrigeration . What you are looking threw is a reinforced sealed viewing window in a little room with a sink in it. Inside are racks and an extraction system? There is the usual hole in the floor common in these rooms for flushing away. Gas anyone?
Humm, nice
Piggery, at the back of the 'hall' is a small outside area, all the main areas have gutters running down the outsides for slopping out.
Thanks for looking.
Last edited:
