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Report - - Severalls Mental Hospital, Colchester - 2015-2023 | Asylums and Hospitals | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Severalls Mental Hospital, Colchester - 2015-2023

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Wastelandr

Goes where the Buddleia grows
Regular User


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This place needs no introduction. It was perhaps the quintessential asylum. Not only was it of mammoth scale, but its architecture seemed perfectly aligned with what stereotypically springs to mind. It was one of many across the country of what I loosely dub the ‘second wave’ of county asylums - those built close to the turn of the twentieth century after the mid-Victorian originals, often as overflows. When you compare the architecture of these two periods, it becomes obvious how the later examples such as Severalls opted for a more streamlined and simpler approach of understated Edwardian elegance, still bearing neo-classical features yet turning it down a notch compared to their palatial extravagant Victorian forefathers. In a similar fashion to West Park, as years of decay set in, the russet terracotta brickwork became layered with dirt and rainwater and became a more drab greyish-brown. The broken windows became gaping wounds in the building, and ivy grew up its sides like a suffocating disease. Its overall appearance was bleak and imposing, and its diabolical scale, acutely-angled maze of corridors, and symmetrical echelon layout gave the impression that this place was from a forgotten era of eldritch horrors.​

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Sevs-chic (le freak?)

When looking at the converted sections now, the architecture appears quite beautiful. But at the time, it felt antiquated enough to appear outdated, yet not quite decorative enough to shake the sense of industrialised solitude that one associates with a lunatic asylum. Often, the recreation halls, fancy admin buildings, and quaint airing shelters of asylums actually challenge their stereotypes, but Severalls lacked such surviving embellishments. Maybe this is why it was such a popular explore, because it gave people everything that they expected. I always think of Whitchurch as a rather colourful and ornate asylum, but Severalls felt like anything but. The NHS’ closure of the asylums is perhaps the closest the UK has come to having ‘ghost towns’ in a vast and culturally-significant way, with perhaps Whitchurch being the last big enough to qualify. Even now, I can’t really believe the scale of this place, but given that they were self-sufficient communities with all amenities included, I don’t think ghost towns is an inaccurate description.​

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360 panorama of the site

THE HISTORY

Severalls Mental Hospital’s foundation stone was lain in 1910 and it was opened in May 1913 as Second Essex County Asylum. It was primarily designed by local architect Frank Whitmore and arranged in the popular compact arrow layout connected by vast corridors, using an echelon plan which saw the wards arranged in interconnected zig-zag fashion around the edges in a chevron shape. Before the hospital really got going, it was requisitioned by the military for use briefly as a camp and then as a military hospital. In the early 1930s, the hospital went through a period of further change, with additional villas and nurses’ blocks being added, as well as its name being changed to Essex and Colchester Mental Hospital. During WW2, the hospital was allegedly mistaken for a factory and bombed by a German aircraft, with three bombs striking the west wing with numerous casualties. Unlike Runwell, I don’t know of Severalls ever having had any air raid shelter facilities.​

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Like many asylums, Severalls joined the NHS in 1948 and entered a period of gradual demise post-WW2, with governmental pressure and shortcomings in practices becoming more entrenched. Controversial therapies such as electroconvulsive therapy and prefrontal lobotomies were all carried out here - this place had it all. Diana Gittins’ Madness in its Place - the definitive study of Severalls living, paints a grisly picture in which a certain Dr. Sherwood was brought in during the 1950s to perform the experimental new lobotomies. The following (rewritten) account presents a grim picture of the hospital.
A patient voluntarily admitted himself in 1953, suffering from depression and paranoia. His time at the hospital initially lifted his spirits, until he was readmitted for being paranoid his neighbour had it in for him (which neighbours often do). He was given the brutal treatments of insulin shock therapy and ECT. He was discharged before returning again due to the neighbour. For another year, he underwent no fewer than sixteen ECT treatments, leaving him ‘tense and agitated’. It was then proposed he underwent a lobotomy. He was next reported to have suffered from headaches and depression, trying to commit suicide several times after being administered drugs. He was given a lobotomy. Days later, he had a fever and was sick, eventually losing the ability to feed himself and with a weakened pulse. By the end of this rapid decline, he could barely respond to stimuli. Dr. Sherwood decided to explore his brain with a needle in 1956, after which he suffered severe neck pain and fever. Ten days later, he was dead.

Dr. Sherwood was soon given the boot by the superintendent from Severalls for his pseudoscientific ways. This hellish story was no doubt one of many which defined experiences in the asylum, and supports the view that they could indeed be inhumane and flawed institutions, although whether they were originally like this when they opened or simply went downhill in their later years is arguable.


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1997 photograph by Joe Allen

As the care in the community act set in, the hospital began to wind down, with much of it closing in the early 1990s. The last remaining facilities at the site closed in 1997, signalling an uncertain future ahead. Severalls was abandoned, and fell into dereliction over the subsequent years. In the early 2000s, the urban exploration scene emerged online which coincided perhaps uncoincidentally with the closure of the asylums, marking a new era in the hospital’s history. It sat abandoned and largely undisturbed until 2015 when clearance and subsequent demolition began to take place over the following two years. The hospital site was purchased by several housing developers, perhaps explaining why only part of the building’s wards were converted. Housing began to be complete with people gradually moving in over 2017 onwards, with ultimately only the western male wards, admin block, water tower, Larch House and airing shelters escaping demolition. The recreation hall burnt down in the early 2000s due to arson, although the other obvious choice of a piece worth saving was the stunning chapel. However, this was also demolished. I think I heard due to structural issues but not entirely sure. The conversions have been done well, providing an accurate impression of what the buildings would’ve looked like in their heyday, although the overall impression is one of disappointment given that such small parts of a huge site were saved. Unlike Warley, Severalls’ more plain architecture ultimately may have cost its survival.​

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Aerial by @KismetJ of the site cleared of most foliage at the start of demolition in 2017

THE VISITS

So there is one catch to this report. It was really a permission visit. But at the age of 18, it was quite an impressive feat to obtain the opportunity and we may never have documented the asylum otherwise. When I started out, Severalls had this legendary reputation as the big daddy of Essex urbex, yet also had some of the better security a bando has seen. @KismetJ first contacted the NHS hopefully for access with the intention of filming a documentary on the hospital to go on our website you may or may not know I’ve been posting on since 2011. Well we’d been told that except for news crews, no camera crew had ever been allowed to film at the hospital, with even the Discovery Channel being denied. It wasn’t all because we were too young and intimidated to explore it the conventional way, but Kismet’s video equipment wasn’t the sort of thing you could throw over a fence and pass into a smashed window. In 2015, handheld mirrorless video cameras had barely emerged on the market, and he would be using a full-size broadcast camera along with a hefty tripod of the kind that had to be carried slung over a shoulder. It was an ambitious project that would result in the remains of Severalls being captured on film in perhaps the highest quality that they ever were. Some of you may remember the announcements at the time, there was a lot of hype surrounding it. Unfortunately, the passion project became too momentous a task as life got in the way and Severall’s fate unfolded in front of us, so it never came to fruition. However, last year I got the footage off of Kismet which would see him pass the baton onto me. Ten years later, I’m in the process of making a reimagined feature-length film on the hospital which is about 40% underway, and if you’re interested in giving your thoughts or contributing to it in some way, give me a shout. Yes, it’s gonna go on YouTube eventually, but hey, it’s a convenient place to stick non-profit documentaries, which is and why we always have dared use the platform. We were there before the goons, and we’ll still be there after.​

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Some of the camera kit involved

So now the confessions are out the way, it’s time to get into the details of our visits. The first time we went was for a health and safety recce, which Kismet had to produce some very in-depth risk assessments for. It consisted of meeting with an NHS staff member, acknowledging that we’d taken heed of the multitude of hazards within the site, and then continuing to wander round regardless. I honestly found it all a bit much, and it was a bit disconcerting to hear the staff talking quietly amongst themselves about the various sources of asbestos present whilst leaving us just do our thing. I even remember when the drone got flown indoors and created a mini-tornado of Severalls-dust. I guess if you’ve ticked the boxes on the form, it’s all good. On our first visit, we had the pleasure of meeting Michael, the security legend known to have had exceptional wits and cunning and really took it upon himself to do his job properly. None of this buying armadillos and camera towers to do your job for you. Whilst at Severalls, he was engaged in a sportsmanly war with urban explorers; whom he termed ‘bloody urbans’. He showed us the mortuary, although by the time we did our two subsequent visits, Michael had moved elsewhere and the security guard had changed. It’s quite ironic that at the time, the NHS staff responsible for Severalls were unsurprisingly quite peed off at urban explorers and they’d never had allowed us access if we presented ourselves as such (at the time straddling closer to the line with local history enthusiasts). However, take it as a win for 28 that here I am 10 years later posting my pics up in a report. I suppose that proves the point that all urbex really is is a word to describe taking an interest in abandoned buildings, rather than being fixed to one group of people or ideals.​

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Walking around a courtyard with the post-Michael secca and estate manager

We visited the hospital site twice over the next year for some pretty thorough coverage of the interior (as much as reasonable to expect for the huge site) and a few more times for peripheral shots and externals. We even managed to get a drone operator involved, which is pretty good considering that consumer drones were very much in their infancy. I have to give the credit for most of this to Kismet, as he organised the whole thing. I was simply tagging along to take photographs, and that’s how this happened. Following my renewed interest in asylums over the past few years, I decided to give my Severalls photographs similar treatment to what I did with my Runwell post and ‘remaster’ them. So I’ve been working on re-editing the photographs over the past few months, involving upscaling them, correcting the perspective, exposure, and white balance, giving them a sharpen and other sorts of lightroom magic. It hasn’t been a quick job, but I think I’ve managed to bring the photographs more in-line with the quality of pictures I’d take today. I used an entry-level Nikon D3100 back then - not a bad camera, but I didn’t really know how best to use it and shot most things on auto mode. I do regret not getting a wide-angle lens or taking more shots, given the rare opportunity, but I’m bloody chuffed I got to see Severalls in the first place. I don’t know how I’d live with myself these days if I let it pass without ever seeing it.

I didn’t return until the Severalls site until 2022 when I went for a solo mooch round to see what was happening with it. It turned out to be an enjoyable afternoon, and the clean streamlined buildings which survived made for good subjects to practise some architecture photography. I came away with two main emotions; gutted it was mostly gone, and inspired to do something with the 2015 material. The dreary oppressive feeling of the hospital was no longer present, instead replaced by a polished new-build estate. It was good to see a few information boards about the asylum complete with images, and there’s even a memorial to the bombing casualties outside admin, so at least the history hasn’t been entirely ignored in the new development. Now for the photographs.​

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The post-conversion male wing

THE SITE


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I think Sevs has to win an award for place with the most health and safety signs. Given the size of the site, I think they accepted the site could never really have all its windows secured or its hazards signposted, so they opted for a catch-all approach at the gate and secca patrols inside.

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ADMINISTRATION BLOCK

Probably the nicest conversion of the hospital buildings. It would’ve formed the centrepiece of the hospital. Similar to the rest of the hospital’s design, it was fairly simple and undecorated, yet has a certain elegance. It’s interesting comparing the burnt-out boarded up shell back in 2015 to what it is today.

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2015

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2023

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Frontage of the building in 2022 post-conversion
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The hospital's foundation stone

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2022

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2015

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Entrance foyer

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The gorgeous staircase

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The covered up skylight. Unfortunately where the admin block was boarded and fire-damaged, it appeared pretty gloomy.

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We had to access admin by climbing in through a hole in the roof of these toilets. They were somewhere to the building's rear.

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CARRIAGEWAY

The north side would’ve been the working end of the asylum which kept it running on a day to day basis, away from most of the wards. The yards in the north-west were industrial in nature, bringing goods in and out via the coachway and lobby and also containing the water tower and boilerhouse. The east side was for laundry etc, I suppose roughly in-keeping with the gendered halves of the complex. I didn’t photograph everything here but here’s shots of a few bits.

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The buildings connecting admin (left) to the rest of the complex, with the yard leading to the carriage arch (beyond the right).

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The carriageway arch into the inner courtyard. Stores was on the right hand side, but we'll cover that later.

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Staff mural on the left-hand side of the carriage arch opposite stores.

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Ironic...

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Access to the corridors on the inside of the carriage arch

TBC...
 
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Wastelandr

Goes where the Buddleia grows
Regular User
THE CORRIDORS

Probably the most definitive shot of Sevs was its corridors, which spanning off in two or even three directions. They were mirrored by a set of underground utility tunnels beneath, which were even more extensive and connected almost every building of the site. Unfortunately I never had a wide-angle lens, nor did I take a panorama.

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The iconic and incredibly infuriating stoner stickman graffiti, probably done by a quintessential Essex chav (pre-roadmen)

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These sections with murals (I believe done in the 1980s) connected to the kitchens or thereabouts.


KITCHENS

The kitchen was situated in the centre of the site between the admin block and the hall. The lobby connected up via the corridors (the ones with the scenery murals on) to this area. It consisted of a main kitchen room, with another smaller glazed room off to the size. At the time of visiting, several of the connecting rooms contained large fridges and ovens too. The kitchen itself is still recognisable in various old photos, including the one shown below.

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Corridor opening out onto the main kitchen.

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Mid-century photo of the opposite entrance into the kitchen

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Looking back at the same entrance

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Another frustration - I never took any photos facing the other way.

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Fridge compressors in a room off to one side of the kitchen

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A smaller glazed kitchen off to the side. Maybe a bakery of sorts?

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Fridges

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Ovens



AIRING SHELTERS

These were placed out in the airing courts which served each ward, around the outside of the asylum as well as a few within its inner courts. The county asylum blueprint and ideology was heavily based around the benefit of the outdoors and fresh air upon mental health (makes you think if at times maybe went backwards with the advent of drugs and other clinical treatments). The airing shelters survived well at Severalls and were restored by a bus shelter company for the modern housing development.

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@KismetJ took this shot in 2016

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Restored shelter in 2022


THE WARDS - EXTERIORS

Not loads to be said about these, but the male side was west, the female was east. I think we mainly saw the male side, which is the side they kept (mostly).

2022 images of the converted male wards:

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The male wards in 2015:

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Flying a DJI Phantom (archaic technology) at the left-hand side of the burnt rear centre of the hospital.
This ward was burnt out completely by arson, a similar fate to the recreation hall which existed a short distance behind.


TBC...​
 
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Wastelandr

Goes where the Buddleia grows
Regular User
THE WARDS - DAYROOMS & DORMS

These are the bread and butter of the asylums - where the patients spent most of their time. Essentially these two kinds of rooms were communal bedrooms and lounges. It does make you wonder what impact it had on mental health being surrounded by others 24/7. The dayrooms are the ones generally with bay windows, sometimes divided with a separate dining room and living room. Severalls had very large ones I believe, maybe a result of its more modern less-cramped design. The dormitories differed from the dayrooms as they were the linear rectangular rooms with beds and windows along the sides and a walkway down the centre, much like a normal hospital. I don't think I photographed as many of these due to their more linear layout. The dayroom bay window has to be my favourite feature of the county asylum - it's iconic.

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Seemingly an original hand-painted sign at the doorway entering a ward

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These glass screens appear to separate dayrooms from dorms or dining areas

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Note another seemingly original cute little sign

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My favourite shot.

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Some of the wards, like much of the hospital, suffered fire damage.

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A large ground floor room.

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This one may have been on the female side, but I can't remember.

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Typical dormitory windows

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On enough medicine you could almost be in the Italian Riviera

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Love the floor tile patterns they used to do


THE WARDS - SIDEROOMS & CELLS

Behind the asylum dayrooms/dorms were the siderooms. These were rows of small singular rooms in a typical asylum fashion, resembling cells. These isolated the patients from the other patients, maybe as punishment or to control them, but maybe to provide some solace and personal space. Funnily enough, there’s photos online of the wards post-conversion with bedrooms made from two seclusion cells knocked through, with the wooden shutters still in place. Bet a lot of current residents would love to know!

Some siderooms would simply have been store rooms and offices. Severalls had a fair few padded cells originally, although none were known to survive into the 21st century. Some of the padded cells in the villas took the form of larger observation-style rooms. Whether we saw any cells that were once padded, I don’t honestly know - there’s nothing obvious in photographs.

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A stereotypical row of siderooms

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A seclusion room with wood shutter - as Tumbles tells me to prevent hangings from curtain rails. We originally thought these were padded cells.

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A view from a sideroom corridor across the main corridor, I believe from the mid-west wards towards the recreation hall.

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There were some nice bathrooms at Sevs, I wish I photographed more.

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It's also been suggested that these were padded cells, but again it's unclear. The glow-in-the-dark tape is interesting.

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More funky floor tiles. No idea where this section was but it was close to an exit to the outside.

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Stairs down from one of the wards. I don't remember Severalls ever having the large staircases typical of asylums.

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As you can imagine, many shots required some intense straightening :lol

TBC...
 
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Wastelandr

Goes where the Buddleia grows
Regular User
WATER TOWER

Like most asylums, the water tower becomes a landmark icon of the hospital upon the landscape. They didn’t let us climb it for obvious reasons. Severalls water tower fortunately survived demolition and was converted into an office for the development project, with a snazzy redone balcony. Whether this ever actually has been used though, I don’t know as its doors look pretty heavy duty.

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Again lots of straightening necessary.

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The water tower in 2022 alongside the residential development

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What I assume was a pump house next to the water tower.
Dan and Jake will hate me but there seems to be a pump cut off on the right! I did get it in video footage though, seems to have been electric.


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A boiler house of sorts?

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Into the utility tunnels


OTHER ROOMS & STORES

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Vehicle maintenance workshop. I think it was somewhere nearish the carriageway.

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Never worked out what this was.

This next room would’ve been the stores for goods arriving at the hospital. It was next to the carriage arch, but I thought I'd save it till later because frankly it was fucked. It still had some kind of old pulley system in place, and a balcony level. Unfortunately it had been sprayed up and had internal walls added, in themselves smashed to bits.

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Stairs running up to the balcony.


MORTUARY

This was a fittingly crucifix-shaped building at the rear west of the site. Unfortunately I didn’t get too many shots of the rest of the building other than of the rather large body fridge. Apparently the building had a male and a female half, hence the cross-shape. No slabs were left.

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Glazed wall in the mortuary. Could be wrong but I got the impression a slab of sorts came out of the wall here.


NURSES BLOCKS

The original nurses’ house was a tall three-storey building in the same style as the rest of the hospital, with a pebble-dashed upper. It comprised two blocks connected with iron walkways and balconies, giving it quite a unique towering look. Not sure if one of the two blocks was a later addition or what. However, it was expanded when three more blocks were built in the surrounding area during the 1930-1935 additions to the hospital, named Alpha, Beta and Gamma presumably after scientific discoveries in radiation (not sure if this had any relevance to Severalls though). We got a few photos of Beta as it was the closest to the original nurses’ block.

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The original two-part building.

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View from the balcony.

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Original block left, 1930s' Beta block right.

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Other side of Beta block.


LARCH HOUSE

This was an original separate building which served as the Attendants’ Recreation Rooms, hence its ornate pillared design. It later served as some kind of alcoholism unit. Along with the admin building, it was listed and hence was one of the buildings sympathetically restored. I bet it makes for a great house now. Annoyingly, I took no internals despite the door being wide open - arghhh.

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2015

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2022 - Front

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2022 - Rear


VILLAS

Lots of villas were built around the main hospital building, both during the original construction and in the 1930s’ expansion. I've read that Severalls' prolific use of villas around the main hospital was a step towards modernising the asylum layout, with more separate wards placed out in the grounds. I suppose a slight step towards the colony plan. Myland Court was originally the Paying Patients’ Pavillion and was the largest of the villas, with an impressive frontage. We never saw this up close but there is this cropped and upscaled drone shot.

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Birchwood was one of the 1930s’ additions and was still in use as an NHS office when we visited in 2015, being near the access road.

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Eden Villa was another 1930s’ addition, originally the Female Observation Villa. For some reason, we were shown inside this relatively unexciting building rather than the other better examples. I didn't take any external pics, we only have a couple of stills from video to go by. Internally it was very much knackered.

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Always found it amusing they actually called it Sevs and it wasn't just urbex slang.

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CONCLUSION

So I think that just about covers it. Another whopper report from me. Been wanting to do this one for a while so glad to finally get it out. We never saw every single bit of the hospital, and missed a fair few of the rear amenities and outbuildings, some of the wards (probably the female wards), and plenty of the multitude of villas, but we did see an awful lot considering the few trips we had. The good thing about it being a permission job was we did get to see a lot of the good stuff in a relatively short space of time, providing a good overview of the hospital. However, I still find myself looking back and obsessing over Severalls material, trying to relive it. Frustratingly, at the time I wasn’t too fussed, but now I’d kill for another look round, and as much as I’m pleased I got the shots I also wish I appreciated it more.

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If you made it this far, cheers for reading!

P.S. If anyone can help with identifying sections or clarifying any inaccuracies and uncertainties, please let me know!​
 
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KPUrban_

Surprisingly Unsurprising
Regular User
Brilliant write up and imagery.
One of the ones I wish i had the chance to see properly (Insert excuses here).
 

JakeV50

"The Pump People"
Regular User
Another awesome report. Once you start, you really get into it don't you :rofl

Not photographing that pump in the water tower is unforgivable though....
 
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Mikeymutt

28DL Regular User
Regular User
Superb report and really well covered. Was lucky to have several visits myself, oh how I wished it was still there.
 

host

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Outstanding report and top marks on the effort. Nothing wrong with a permission job I’ve done plenty and sometimes it’s the best way to really do a good job of documenting the site. The thrill of exploring can’t be matched but sometimes not looking over your shoulder every 5 mins is good too.
 

Speed

Got Epic Slow?
Regular User
The room with the red sign on the wall was the vehicle maintenance shop.

The 'electrical thingys' are the fridge compressors

You got a nice shot of the salon there too which many people never even saw as it was in the lesser spotted far side of the hosiptal.

Being my local I have a bit of bias view on the place but as the UE scene evolved its interesting how it went from being regarded as one of the better asylums to being regarded as a bit of a shit one, then to back to be hailed as one of the best again. Short memories I guess! It was Certainly one of the most sprawling that I ever visited but also one of the most stripped back. That did lead to smaller finds seeming more significant tho. The little day room sign was one thing I remember getting quite excited was still there (but every door in Cane Hill had signs like that!)

Very nice set of photos either way. The external with the brown NHS hospital signs is great. We were only talking the other day about how they are a rare thing nowerdays.
 

Wastelandr

Goes where the Buddleia grows
Regular User
excellent pictograms! Insert obligatory ‘I really miss the old girl’ comment here
Don't we all! Had a look at your Stone House report last night, that's an early one

Brilliant write up and imagery.
One of the ones I wish i had the chance to see properly (Insert excuses here).
Cheers dude! Yeah I feel ya, there's so much stuff I was around for but just not able to travel and see, or just not interested until it was too late.

Another awesome report. Once you start, you really get into it don't you :rofl

Not photographing that pump in the water tower is unforgivable though....
Ahaha that's it. Once I'm in the zone, it's going to be a long night!

Here's a video still of the presumed pump. Tbh they might not even be pumps actually.

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Superb report and really well covered. Was lucky to have several visits myself, oh how I wished it was still there.
Cheers Mikey! Came across a report you did on DP actually. Yeah, could never have had enough visits to this place.

Outstanding report and top marks on the effort. Nothing wrong with a permission job I’ve done plenty and sometimes it’s the best way to really do a good job of documenting the site. The thrill of exploring can’t be matched but sometimes not looking over your shoulder every 5 mins is good too.
Appreciated! I honestly love a permission visit even now. This place is a bit of an exception given that it was still doable anyway, but sometimes permission is the only way to 'gain access' to a place. There's been times before where I've came across some gems that way. I've had enough thrills, it's ok if the priority is just seeing/documenting sometimes.

Fantastic, must be the most comprehensive report on this place.
Cheers! Glad to do that all these years after.

The room with the red sign on the wall was the vehicle maintenance shop.

The 'electrical thingys' are the fridge compressors

You got a nice shot of the salon there too which many people never even saw as it was in the lesser spotted far side of the hosiptal.

Being my local I have a bit of bias view on the place but as the UE scene evolved its interesting how it went from being regarded as one of the better asylums to being regarded as a bit of a shit one, then to back to be hailed as one of the best again. Short memories I guess! It was Certainly one of the most sprawling that I ever visited but also one of the most stripped back. That did lead to smaller finds seeming more significant tho. The little day room sign was one thing I remember getting quite excited was still there (but every door in Cane Hill had signs like that!)

Very nice set of photos either way. The external with the brown NHS hospital signs is great. We were only talking the other day about how they are a rare thing nowerdays.
Thanks for those clarifications, very much a help. Ah nice, which bit is the salon?

You know recently I was watching this excellent 2005 footage of the place from the mechanised site guy, and he comments on how bare the site is. Now days, it seems places are mostly always empty, but compared to the other asylums of the time I can see how it would've seemed barren. I'm more of a space/room rather than detail-orientated person so I don't mind that, but it could've had a bit more in it. West Park (I was too late for) always looked very Severalls-esque but with a lot of furniture left as though people just walked out. Really would donate an organ to have seen that place. Cane Hill though, without having been, I've never quite got what the fuss was about. It looked like it had some excellent specific areas with a few bits left in (the one with the clothing springs to mind), but it looked like a large portion of the building very much fucked.

Cheers! Yeah you've got to love the old school brown NHS signs. The change from brown to blue perfectly suits the perception of having to blend in with quaint old buildings vs the clinical builds of today.
 

Calamity Jane

i see beauty in the unloved, places & things
Regular User
Top stuff on a very iconic urbex. Great coverage, photos, information and narration. The thrill of Severalls was always a great one. Great to see such a well documented compilation on it. Feature material definitely. 👊
 

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