The History
Despite being built in the late 1950’s there is very little documented about Braintree College.
It was originally a stand-alone facility but in 2010 merged with Colchester institute and became part of their group.
Now what can I tell you about Braintree College you may ask?
Well as a former student, gaining various B-Tec, City and Guilds and Emfec Qualifications in Engineering, welding and Car mechanics, I can tell you that Braintree College of Further education was a pretty decent place. I Think I spent a total of 6 years studying here on various day release and evening courses paid for both by my employers and by myself. I enjoyed my time here and had some truly fantastic teachers, some of whom I am still in contact with.
Aside from my good self the college spawned a few other notable pupils.
Some guy called Olly Murs was once a student here
But more to the point the almighty god given talent that was Keith Flint - May god rest his tortured soul - was also a student here.
It is believed he may or may not have studied Pyromania. (Honest guv) He also purchased his first house in the same road the college is situated in.
A recent local paper article states that the older unused buildings of the college are soon to be torn down to make way for bungalows and a care home.
Plan to bulldoze college buildings to make way for new care home and bungalows
A SET of educational buildings could be torn down to make way for a new 75-bed care home and supported living accommodation.
www.braintreeandwithamtimes.co.uk
This clip I found on YouTube gives you an idea of the scale of the site
The Explore
So both myself and Rapid Ascent had our beady eyes on the tower block here for ages. Me since I was a student and RA for the last year or so. The local Facebook pages and the local paper have been talking about the college closing for some time now. I wasn’t until a few days before Christmas I happened to be this end of town and I noticed the Heras fencing surrounding the older parts and we started to discuss an umbox.
Now our original plan was to just climb the tower and have a sit on the roof and watch the world go by, that’s kinda how it started.
But on our way back down from the roof we decided to have a nose about and found that it wasn’t as stripped as we had previously thought. Only problem was it was a little too dark.
The solution to this?
A day time visit. Only this time RA was at work so @Seffy drove over and joined me for a day time excursion.
The Externals
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