Report (Permission Visit) Foxcombe Hall Laboratory Building, Oxford November 2012

[mookster]

Another place from the archives I never got around to posting for one reason or another. I was always kind of reticent to post this one up before as although the building was disused, and hadn't been used for about five years by the time I visited, it wasn't really 'abandoned' as such, as it was in the middle of a very much in use university campus and I only managed to get in thanks to one of my friends being a worker at the institute in question and also involved with a camera club I had done a couple of talks at.

A little bit of history about the hall itself, the building I photographed was of a similar age to the main building.

Created in the early 1900s by Lord Randall Berkeley at Boars Hill, an area of beautiful countryside, the property lies four miles southwest of Oxford, the venerable university city.
The main house was built to resemble a grand baronial hall with a stone tower, in medieval style. An earlier 19th-century property was incorporated into the new building, which is a sprawling mix of red brick and stone with faux-Tudor beams. Additional extensions date to the late 1960s, when the site became a college.

The Open University bought the site in 1976 and they sold the buildings a couple of years ago to Peking University who have renovated it, reopened it as a business school and built new student accomodation and lecture halls on site.

I honestly didn't know what to expect when I went inside here, all I can remember though is being blown away by how much stuff had been left behind. Some rooms had obviously been used for storage after the building was vacated but others were like they had just downed tools for the day and gone home - I was assured by my friend though that there had been no actual work done in the building for at least five years. It was a dated scientific instruments paradise inside.

Excuse some shoddy photography in parts (yes I know the white balance is waaaaaay off in some!), I was far too preoccupied with poking around at interesting things...

Continued...​

 

[mookster]

Thanks for looking ​

 

[Giymo85]

Can certainly see why you wouldn't have wanted to post that. Very nice.

 

[wormster]

Awesome, just fooking awesome, and its only a short hop round the ringroad!

 

[mookster]

Awesome, just fooking awesome, and its only a short hop round the ringroad!

Long gone now - the buildings have all been converted into the new Peking University business campus, and this one was cleared out long before that happened.

 

[wormster]

I know. its a pity that I'm too late!

 

[urbanchemist]

All well and good, but what were you taking pictures of - some sort of biophysics lab?

 

[mookster]

All well and good, but what were you taking pictures of - some sort of biophysics lab?

I'd have to hunt out my friend and see if he knows for sure what sort of lab it was, it was a long time ago now and as far as I can recall all he said to me at the time was that it was an old university laboratory/workshop space. Further than that I'll have to do some digging.

 

[wormster]

Having done a bit of digging, looking at that Desiometer and the x ray equipment, plus all the coil winding wire etc, I'd guess that its some sort of electronics development lab, the afrementioned equipment was probs used to investigate the substrates of integrated circuits and circuit board manufacture!

 

[stoff urbex]

the gas man who fitted that regulator/meter in photo 3 from bottom deserves some sort of award for the worse placement ive ever seen