This was our final stop on day one of the recent Aberdeen meet, so for this explore I was accompanied by Alir147, MrFish, Meowmix, Gorecki, Tankie_buck and Commander
I have visited Ladysbridge before, so check here for my previous report, which has a bit more on the history of the site and pictures from before. Here I will try and concentrate on some of the different area's we visited on this visit and some new photos from before, so check my other report for a bit better an idea of the whole site in general.
This visit also came with an official 'okay' - as we were heading into the site we met the current owner of the site who recognised a few of our collective from a meeting on a previous explore, so stopped for a chat Having worked in Ladysbridge for many years he has a wealth of information on the site, going as far as knowing quite well a few of the previous patients known to us, which is impressive considering the hospital could house up to 900 patients at any point. He was happy for us to have a look around the hospital and take pictures, and appreciates what we were doing and why we were there, going as far as taking us over to show us an easy way into the site (which also happened to be the access we knew)
First off, a visit for a quick look through one of the ward blocks, there are a few of these spread over the site each containing the wards and all the supporting rooms for keeping the patients, the fact that they are all spread out a bit and surrounded by greenery made the site much more pleasant for the occupants, and much nicer than a generic big city hospital - which was exactly why Ladysbridge was created: for longer term occupants.
Moving onwards we headed to the main block in the modern buildings, housing the kitchens, the hall and all the other wee offices and bits.
The hall.
Boardroom.
The Kitchen.
A group shot of everyone in the jacuzzi room, MrFish and Gorecki should have similar copies of this picture from slightly different angles, we had three Canon SLR's setup and firing in synch from my remote
Due to time constraints we gave the rest of the modern buildings a miss - they are all fairly similar in design, just with different layouts depending on the exact use - offices/clinic rooms or wards/common rooms and so on. We were tempted to go back and find the catheter found previously in one of the clinic buildings, but sadly forgot to wander over...
On to the older buildings, these made up the old hospital before it was extended in the 70's, and are currently in the process of being converted, the building is an old granite construction, extended multiple times over the years with a few different sections, you can also see the accommodation here is made of lots of smaller rooms rather than one big ward split up. We covered these fairly well before, so I haven't got too many pictures from this visit.
The area currently undergoing conversion. and yes if they leave scaffolding in such an easy place, I will end up sitting in the rafters watching everyone wandering past underneath me
Beds in an outbuilding.
A new discovery for this visit was access to the roof at one section, it really is lovely sitting on the roof in the peace and quiet watching the sun go down over the surrounding countryside... You can see for a fair distance out over the countryside one way, and the other direction you can see up to the modern sections, since the old buildings are down a hill you are pretty much looking from roof level over to the ground level of the higher buildings through the trees.
And onwards to another new section, firstly into the hall used for laundry and so on, mostly empty except for one room with a couple of tables piled high with stuff left behind - glasses, false teeth, key and god knows what else
In one side room there is a ladder heading up to a water tank, and some evidence of some previous occupiers in the form of some hatched eggshells left behind
Oddly enough the top of the water tank is fairly clear of debris, but the bottom of the ladder is buried in two feet of twigs and branches which seemed too big for the birds to have carried in, possibly dumped there and used as an opportunistic home by the birds?
Our final discovery was also one of the best, myself and MrFish disappeared off down into the maintenance ducts to see what we could find...
Down in the main passagway, we found a wee ladder heading down into a much smaller side passage, so fighting for space alongside the ductwork and cabling we squeezed along to see what we could find, to reappear in the previously unreachable boiler room (I do believe at this point those still in the main building were treated to a message of happy gibberish through the walkie talkies, before heading over to meet us and see for themselves)
At that point the light had disappeared completely, so after a day of exploring time was called and everyone headed off back to Aberdeen (and further). Thanks to everyone who came along to the meetup, it was great to see some new faces alongside the usual Aberdeen crew, and a pleasure to head out on a days exploring with.
