Miscellany 2022-
More derelict places found on my travels around the UK; factories, farms, quarries, barns and everything else that doesn't fit elsewhere.
Older galleries: 2004–14 – 2015–21
    The Elm Tree was previously a beer house called the Greyhound. It was renamed the Elm Tree some time between 1960 and 1975, the name being taken from the number of elm trees that once lined the road. The pub closed c.2020 and has been completely stripped. Apparently there are plans to convert it into flats, assuming it doesn't fall down first...     This regional maintenance depot was built in the 1970s on the site of a redundant army camp. It was declared surplus to requirements in 2018 and closed shortly afterwards.  This pontoon excavator dug clay-silt from the marshes for use in the nearby Alpha Cement Works. It has been abandoned since the plant closed in 1970.  
     A defended Anti-Aicraft Operations Room (AAOR) near Merstham, built in 1951 to command the several heavy gun batteries of the London South Gun-Defended Area of the national anti-aircraft defence scheme, codenamed "Nucleus". One of the batteries survived until recently at Worms Heath near Warlingham. After being rendered obsolete by modern missile systems, it became the Metropolitan Police's Southern War HQ, in which capacity it served until 1991. The lower storey is now completely flooded.     A large Edwardian villa which has been extended by a rambling assortment of low-rise corridors and rooms into a 40-bed elderly care facility. The home was evacuated due to serious flooding from the neighbouring River Mole on Christmas Eve 2013 and never re-opened.     A rambling Victorian residence originally called Parkfield. In the early 1900s the house became a private boys' preparatory school, which operated for nearly 70 years, but in 1974 was acquired by Downlands College, a specialist school for children with severe dyslexia and dysgraphia. Downlands closed in 1985 as result of changes in local authority funding for special schools and the building was converted into a 46-bed care home. It was destroyed by a deliberate fire in January 2023. |