THE DERELICT MISCELLANY

County Index

Brecknock.  :  Bristol  :  Cards.  :  Carms.  :  Derbys.  :  Gloucs.  :  Hants.  :  Pembs.  :  Somer.  :  Sussex  :  Undisc.

Surrey Historically, every county has had its own distinctive style and types of building depending on the needs of its people, economy, underlying geology and raw materials. Although regional differences in architecture have diminished with the age of cheap bulk transport, even today building type can vary widely by region. Here I have listed all of the buildings featured on this site by historical county (pre-1975).

Brecknockshire/Sir Frycheiniog

Mid Wales Hospital A large turn-of-the-century psychiatric institution hidden amongst the Brecon Beacons, slowly rotting from the top down after conversion plans fell through in 2008.

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City & County of Bristol

Purdown Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery Heavy gun battery built during the Second World War to defend the city of Bristol from devastating air raids.

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Cardiganshire/Sir Ceredigion

Capel Blaencaron A disused Calvinistic Methodist Chapel on a lonely mountain road in the Welsh highlands, opened in 1875 and closed c.2000.

Esgair-Mwyn Lead and Zinc Mines This small lead and zinc concern stopped working underground in the 1920s, but the tips were worked until 1994, making it Wales' last lead mining operation.

St. Matthew's Church, Goginan A small church established as a mission of Llanbadarn Fawr in 1871; closed at an unknown date and sold for conversion to a house.

Pont Llanio Milk Factory A factory and distribution depot set up by the Milk Marketing Board in 1937 to process milk from local farms. Closed in 1970, it has stood empty for nearly half a century.

Welsh Martyrs' Church A striking modernist church plagued by problems with the flat roof caused by the famously wet Welsh weather which forced it to close in 2008.

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Carmarthenshire/Sir Gaerfyrddin

Capel Troedyrhiw A substantial Welsh Independent chapel elegantly furnished with carved woodwork, stained glass and decorative ironwork, abandoned as congregations and fortunes declined in the early 21st century. .

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Derbyshire

Willington Cooling Towers Five massive hyperboloid cooling towers; the last remnant of two enormous coal-fired power stations which together could produce 125 MW of electricity.

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Gloucestershire

Kingswood Wesleyan Chapel A large Victorian chapel in the suburbs of Bristol. Latterly used as a school of dance before being abandoned to vandals and arsonists.

Whitefield's Tabernacle Two churches on one site, first established by Methodist pioneers George Whitefield and John Cennick in 1741.

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Hampshire

Forton Graveyard of Ships The remains of small a shipbreaking business comprising dozens of derelict vessels: minesweepers, trawlers, gunboats, landing craft and more.

Fraser Ranges & Admiralty Research Establishment Disused Naval gunnery school, missile range and Admiralty RADAR Research Establishment.

Portsmouth Greyhound Stadium A once iconic feature of Portsmouth's skyline - a 1930s racetrack in the heart of Tipner's modern ghost town.

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Pembrokeshire/Sir Benfro

St. Michael's Church, Llanfihangel Penbedw A modest parish church with mediæval origins, "restored" in Victorian times but abandoned in the 1970s.

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Somerset

Barrow Hospital The Second Bristol City Mental Hospital, opened in the 1930s to be a progressive centre for treating 'diseases of the mind'.

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Surrey

Baynards Works An 80-acre site comprising the remains of chemical works, battery manufacturing and brickmaking over more than a century. One of the south east's most toxic and contaminated sites.

Buckland Sand & Silica Quarry, washing and processing works which provided fine sands for the glass and ceramics industries.

Clock House Brickworks Large soft-mud process brickworks established in the 1930s as a factory for ceramic blocks. In 1945 it was acquired by London Brick who switched production to multi-stock bricks. It fell victim to the recession of 2008.

Coulsdon Deep-Level Air Raid Shelter A Second World War public air raid shelter which later found use in making lenses for telescopes and television cameras.

Deepdene: Southern Railway Control Room Undergound tunnels housing the wartime control room and telephone exchange of one of the 'Big Four' railway companies.

Dunley Hill Camp A Second World War Canadian Artillery camp hidden in the woods of Ranmore Common near Dorking.

R(C)AF Dunsfold A Class 'A' Bomber airfield built in 1942 by the Royal Canadian Air Force, later used for aircraft testing and development, including on the Hunter Hawker and BAe Harrier Jump-jet.

Ewhurst Brickworks Remains of a small factory producing stock bricks of Weald Clay until its closure in the 1980s.

Hollywood Lodge A once grand Georgian gentleman's residence latterly used as a psychiatric hospital annexe.

Horton Hospital Chapel A psychiatric hospital chapel opened in 1902. The hospital played an important role in the development of music therapy, forensic psychiatry, malaria research, and attempts to treat and rehabilitate pathological sex-offenders.

Laporte Earths A hellish maze of conveyors, silos, calciners, mills and pipes used to produce granular fuller's earth for the chemical, woollen and pet-litter industries.

Lingfield Farm Colony A sprawling hospital-school established in the 19th Century as a mission of mercy to London's poor, which later became a pioneering centre for the treatment and care of epilepsy in children.

Milford Hospital A former tuberculosis sanatorium built by Surrey County Council in the late 1920s. After some time as a chest and later specialist geriatric hospital, it finally closed in the 1990s.

Nutbourne Brickworks A substantial 1930s brickworks comprising dryers, moulding sheds, milling plant, a smithy, canteen and the remains of a narrow gauge railway system.

Oaklands Park House A tumbledown Victorian mansion hidden in the Surrey Countryside.

Swallow's Tiles Ltd. A well-preserved small-scale Victorian factory which produced handmade tiles until 2008.

Tangley Place and the Worplesdon Laboratory A fire-ravaged Victorian mansion whose history includes a pioneering motorist, scandal, spies and loss, latterly used by the Ministry of Agriculture as a field station for animal testing.

BBC Tatsfield Receiving Station Derelict BBC Technical station which monitored domestic and foreign broadcasts - the first place in Britain to recieve signals from the Russian satellite Sputnik I.

West Park Hospital The last of a cluster of mental hospitals to be built by the London County Council on the Horton Estate near Epsom, a disorientating maze of wards and corridors.

Weyburn Engineering Works This rural factory, established in 1913, made precision components for cars, trucks, aeroplanes and even tanks for over 90 years.

Wonham Mill An eighteenth century flour mill and miller's house, much extended in 1914 and still grinding corn for animal feed until the early 21st century.

Worms Heath "Igloo 2" Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery A heavy gun site built in the early years of the Cold War as part of a short-lived and little-known artillery-based defence against anticipated Soviet nuclear bombers.

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Sussex

Abingworth Nurseries A long-disused mushroom farm hiding an unexpected potpourri manufacturing outfit. A victim of cheap imports and changing tastes.

Bedham Mission Church & School A tiny abandoned church doubling as a schoolroom, built for itinerant charcoal burners in the backwoods of the Sussex Weald.

Beedingwood A remarkable gothic fantasy of a house built in 1876; During WWII it became part of a pioneering rehabilitation hospital and in the 80s was left to ruin.

Chichester RAF Distribution Depot Defended fuel facility built to serve fighter airfields on the South Coast during the Second World War. Later used as a civillian fuel depot.

Cocking Limeworks Quarry, plant and kilns once supplying lime for construction and agriculture, and powdered chalk to the local brick industry.

The Convent of Our Lady of Mount Carmel A Victorian convent home to a community of Carmelite nuns until 1994, later used as accommodation for farm workers and partially destroyed by a deliberate fire in 2009.

Park Aviation Supply Co ("The Aeroplane Graveyard") A breaker's yard full of decaying warplanes hidden deep in the Sussex countryside.

St Francis's Hospital Exploring around the edges of a large Victorian psychiatric hospital; abandoned wards and a forgotten burial place.

St Michael's Orphanage Chapel A redbrick gothic chapel originally serving a girls' orphanage; St Michael's later found use by a Catholic Seminary, a school of Ballet and a controversial Islamic school.

Steep Park A rambling Victorian mansion, formerly home to a wealthy artisan and his wife, which fell into ruin after their deaths at the turn of the 21st century.

West Hoathly Brickworks One of the last brickworks in England to use the traditional clamp-firing method. It closed due to the downturn in the building trade caused by the Covid pandemic.

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Undisclosed & Other

Atmospheric Station 'F' A research station built in the 1950s to monitor meteorological phenomena and test scientific instruments for a local university.

Melin y Crychydd Woollen Mill A small but industrious mid-Victorian woollen mill which ran one of the first public electricity schemes in Wales.

Lost Gardens A brief history of the rise and decline of the country house garden.

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