HISTORY: Ormskirk Cottage Hospital or Ormskirk Dispensary was established in 1797. The Dispensary and Cottage Hospital opened in Hants Lane in 1896. An extension was built in 1928, by which time it was known as the Ormskirk General Hospital and Dispensary. It seems to have evolved into the Brandreth Hospital. Administered by a Committee until absorbed into the NHS in 1948, the hospital then came under the aegis of the Ormskirk and District Hospital Management Committee, subsequently the Ormskirk Health District of the Lancashire Area Health Authority, and later the West Lancashire Health Authority.
It eventually became the Ormskirk campus of West Lancashire College which is why the photos might look confusing. Switches from a childrens ward and medical signage to a photography studio and cinema room. From the articles I read the owner got permission to convert it to houses but the neighbourhood kicked up such a fuss that was withdrawn leaving demolition the only solution. No date for that has been announced yet though.
EXPLORE: Hidden access but not too difficult thankfully as I'm getting too old for high climbs. We got a good long time in here despite being surrounded by residential housing. It was huge and confusing layout with lots to go around. However it has been absolutely stripped bare. Even the suspended ceiling panels and light switches seemed to have been removed (not vandalised, just removed).
There are a few different buildings but all joined together at this point. Three different staircases with some parts having three floors. It genuinely was much bigger than these photos will likely indicate. We took 10x more than I'm sharing here. This is the central staircase:
Despite how empty it looked there wasn't alot of signs of vandalism. Only damage from stuff not being removed from walls carefully. There was a lot of damage that looked like people searching for stuff to strip out like wire? But even all the toilets were still intact:
Including those in the childrens ward which had loads of beautiful tiles, low coat hangers, and the foundation stone:
As far as we could tell we got to every part of the network of buildings and you can even get outside to the courtyards:
The top floors were mostly empty as if used for storage. But there was a lot of rooms dedicated to photography including developing rooms, old printers, some chemicals left, lots of photo print paper, and a large black room with white projection wall:
We never found a date when they stopped using this as a college campus, but everything we saw was dated either 2010 or 2011. Including this notice at the front door which we thought told a lot more about what happened to cause the college (which is still in operation) to abandon this site. Our guess is the building's owner got into a lot of financial difficulty?
We spent a lot of time here but sadly it wasn't a hugely exciting explore because it's just mostly empty rooms. Everything is gone and there are just leftover signs of what each room use to be used for.
It eventually became the Ormskirk campus of West Lancashire College which is why the photos might look confusing. Switches from a childrens ward and medical signage to a photography studio and cinema room. From the articles I read the owner got permission to convert it to houses but the neighbourhood kicked up such a fuss that was withdrawn leaving demolition the only solution. No date for that has been announced yet though.
EXPLORE: Hidden access but not too difficult thankfully as I'm getting too old for high climbs. We got a good long time in here despite being surrounded by residential housing. It was huge and confusing layout with lots to go around. However it has been absolutely stripped bare. Even the suspended ceiling panels and light switches seemed to have been removed (not vandalised, just removed).
There are a few different buildings but all joined together at this point. Three different staircases with some parts having three floors. It genuinely was much bigger than these photos will likely indicate. We took 10x more than I'm sharing here. This is the central staircase:
Despite how empty it looked there wasn't alot of signs of vandalism. Only damage from stuff not being removed from walls carefully. There was a lot of damage that looked like people searching for stuff to strip out like wire? But even all the toilets were still intact:
Including those in the childrens ward which had loads of beautiful tiles, low coat hangers, and the foundation stone:
As far as we could tell we got to every part of the network of buildings and you can even get outside to the courtyards:
The top floors were mostly empty as if used for storage. But there was a lot of rooms dedicated to photography including developing rooms, old printers, some chemicals left, lots of photo print paper, and a large black room with white projection wall:
We never found a date when they stopped using this as a college campus, but everything we saw was dated either 2010 or 2011. Including this notice at the front door which we thought told a lot more about what happened to cause the college (which is still in operation) to abandon this site. Our guess is the building's owner got into a lot of financial difficulty?
We spent a lot of time here but sadly it wasn't a hugely exciting explore because it's just mostly empty rooms. Everything is gone and there are just leftover signs of what each room use to be used for.
