This site has for sure become a regular for me. Its easy to get to, a huge site and, despite there being an active building (The Aspinal of London Headquarters) attached, there's little to no security on site during closed hours.
The History
The Fernhurst Research station was a weed killer research facility for protecting the fruit industry from weeds.
The ICI Plant Protection Division were founded in 1926, they moved into the site in 1945 with the intent of investigating pest control.
ICI then officially made the location their headquarters in the 70s and it remained this way all the way through to 1994 where the site became apart of Zeneca.
During ICIs occupation in 1986 a new international conference center was opened on the site by the infamous Prime Minister, Margret Thatcher.
The site then later became the headquarters for Syngenta when Zeneca Agrochemicals and Novartis Agribusiness Both merged to become Syngenta.
They then left the site in 2001
The site was then sold off in 2007 to contractors by AkzoNobel.
The offices and laboratory in Fernhurst were officially closed at some point in mid 2008 and the rooms were then later stripped in late 2008.
Many property developer applications and plans have been proposed since, but still yet nothing has yet been agreed and thus the site has just been left.
The Explore
The site is huge. There are 2 outbuildings and a Jaguar, aswell as the huge main building which consists of 3 floors structured in long maze like corridors that you could easily find yourself lost in. There's even an added basement aswell as easy roof access.
We started with the outbuildings, finding various remnants of the previous occupants including name cards, Piles and piles of documents and many other random things. The metal blinds kept rustling in the wind and causing us alot of anxiety until we realized it was only just that, window blinds. We then had a look at the Jaguar and my mechanical minded friend had a look inspect of it, Safe to say that despite of the new paint job the car is fucked. Afterwards we then headed into the main buidling, starting on the bottom east side of the building we worked our way through the maze of corridors through to the top west side. Such rooms included: Toilets, a staff room, two server rooms, 9 stair wells and many many blank office rooms.
Due to all of the vandalism there's barley anything left of the windows and anything in the office rooms. Just broken floor tiles.
We spent a solid 3 hours there taking many photos and using the long straight corridors and extreme overgrowth to our creative advantage and it was alot of fun.
The main building from the overgrown car park
Some corridors within the main building
The basement
Moreeeeee corridors
Decided to play with some fire while there
An old server room
The view from the roof (Aspinal of london, the active building is pictured on the left)
Even moreeee corridors and my friend Lorelei
The abandoned Jaguar outside
Another corridor, this ones in one of the outhouses
The main building from an outhouse
So many documents that date as far back to the 80s and most of them genuinely look freshly printed and brand new
The History
The Fernhurst Research station was a weed killer research facility for protecting the fruit industry from weeds.
The ICI Plant Protection Division were founded in 1926, they moved into the site in 1945 with the intent of investigating pest control.
ICI then officially made the location their headquarters in the 70s and it remained this way all the way through to 1994 where the site became apart of Zeneca.
During ICIs occupation in 1986 a new international conference center was opened on the site by the infamous Prime Minister, Margret Thatcher.
The site then later became the headquarters for Syngenta when Zeneca Agrochemicals and Novartis Agribusiness Both merged to become Syngenta.
They then left the site in 2001
The site was then sold off in 2007 to contractors by AkzoNobel.
The offices and laboratory in Fernhurst were officially closed at some point in mid 2008 and the rooms were then later stripped in late 2008.
Many property developer applications and plans have been proposed since, but still yet nothing has yet been agreed and thus the site has just been left.
The Explore
The site is huge. There are 2 outbuildings and a Jaguar, aswell as the huge main building which consists of 3 floors structured in long maze like corridors that you could easily find yourself lost in. There's even an added basement aswell as easy roof access.
We started with the outbuildings, finding various remnants of the previous occupants including name cards, Piles and piles of documents and many other random things. The metal blinds kept rustling in the wind and causing us alot of anxiety until we realized it was only just that, window blinds. We then had a look at the Jaguar and my mechanical minded friend had a look inspect of it, Safe to say that despite of the new paint job the car is fucked. Afterwards we then headed into the main buidling, starting on the bottom east side of the building we worked our way through the maze of corridors through to the top west side. Such rooms included: Toilets, a staff room, two server rooms, 9 stair wells and many many blank office rooms.
Due to all of the vandalism there's barley anything left of the windows and anything in the office rooms. Just broken floor tiles.
We spent a solid 3 hours there taking many photos and using the long straight corridors and extreme overgrowth to our creative advantage and it was alot of fun.
The main building from the overgrown car park
Some corridors within the main building
The basement
Moreeeeee corridors
Decided to play with some fire while there
An old server room
The view from the roof (Aspinal of london, the active building is pictured on the left)
Even moreeee corridors and my friend Lorelei
The abandoned Jaguar outside
Another corridor, this ones in one of the outhouses
The main building from an outhouse
So many documents that date as far back to the 80s and most of them genuinely look freshly printed and brand new
Attachments
Last edited:
