St James' Hospital opened in 1870 as the Portsmouth Borough Asylum. As was the fate of all the UK asylums post 1980 when mental health began to move more towards care in the community, St James' was eventually decommissioned and is currently on it's way to become the latest swanky new asylum housing estate. In more recent years it became the cities mental health administration centre and also housed a detox unit and a mental health day care project called The Orchards, which is the last remaining active part of the hospital.
I have had my eyes on the site since it closed 5 years ago. Initially it was just too new and shiny to really warrant bothering with. Having been used mostly for administration for the last 20 years, I was aware this hospital wasn''t going to deliver much on equipment or all the usual shiny things we find in hospitals. So it was just about sitting back and letting nature do it's thing. Sadly, local housing needs decided to give nature a helping hand and as the demolition trucks moved in a few weeks back, I figured it was now or never.
The first attempt was met with failure as the site was secured tight, security patrols are frequent and despite many hours of searching, we just couldn't find a way in. Several weeks later and a drone in the air showed that demolition was moving fast and possibly left a way in. We were met this time with what they felt was a more secure site. Heras that hadn't really been thought through, and a ton of CCTV signs with no obvious cameras did little to concern us. They clearly were not expecting explorers yet. We slid under the heras and came to head to head with a patrol pretty fast. A few minutes face down in a bush and we had evaded him. We bolted for the nearest building and found it wide open, once in, we had access to the entire site. We had to navigate lots of internal access points where they had sealed things internally, nothing that we didn't manage to find a way around. Anyway, all that just makes the explore right?
We had our eyes on the clock tower which sat directly above the dog vans and security hut. Sadly, we got busted but figured it was worth a shot. Security were cool, escorted us out and we managed to cover 99% of the site in just over 3 hours. Not a bad morning for a rainy day in Portsmouth.
I have had my eyes on the site since it closed 5 years ago. Initially it was just too new and shiny to really warrant bothering with. Having been used mostly for administration for the last 20 years, I was aware this hospital wasn''t going to deliver much on equipment or all the usual shiny things we find in hospitals. So it was just about sitting back and letting nature do it's thing. Sadly, local housing needs decided to give nature a helping hand and as the demolition trucks moved in a few weeks back, I figured it was now or never.
The first attempt was met with failure as the site was secured tight, security patrols are frequent and despite many hours of searching, we just couldn't find a way in. Several weeks later and a drone in the air showed that demolition was moving fast and possibly left a way in. We were met this time with what they felt was a more secure site. Heras that hadn't really been thought through, and a ton of CCTV signs with no obvious cameras did little to concern us. They clearly were not expecting explorers yet. We slid under the heras and came to head to head with a patrol pretty fast. A few minutes face down in a bush and we had evaded him. We bolted for the nearest building and found it wide open, once in, we had access to the entire site. We had to navigate lots of internal access points where they had sealed things internally, nothing that we didn't manage to find a way around. Anyway, all that just makes the explore right?
We had our eyes on the clock tower which sat directly above the dog vans and security hut. Sadly, we got busted but figured it was worth a shot. Security were cool, escorted us out and we managed to cover 99% of the site in just over 3 hours. Not a bad morning for a rainy day in Portsmouth.
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