The post office has a very impressive front facade that faces onto fitzalan square in the heart of the city centre. Access is riduculously difficult, so don’t even bother trying. Due to its public location and the great condition of the building, the only way in is stupid and dangerous.

Internally, the site is deceptively large, consisting of sorting office, distribution, public area, and 6 storeys of offices, aswell as a vast basement. There is much post office memorabilia around, and some of the choice finds included a basement gym and a postmans satchel that looks to date from at least the 1950’s / 1960’s and is branded with GPO. It looks as if the building closed sometime around when the Post Office attempted to rebrand itself as consignia and there is signage still on the walls from this time in its use. Staff badges, stamps, royal mail carrier bags and pamphlets can all be found. There is almost no sign of vandalism. In the sorting area a wooden tiled floor has been ruined by people ripping up cables, but this is the only damage to the whole site. There is no sign of any else except security visiting here since it closed.

Hunting lodge turned childrens home, located in the Strines area of the Sheffield Peak District.

We set off 9am to Chester, with a whole weekends of exploring ahead of us. Meeting the others in Morrisons Car Park, we said our hello’s while BenWRX and Spook went to reccy the entrance point. Getting 25 people in to the place was going to be some task, but these guys did a sterling job. Much respect.

We decided it would be best to enter in groups of 3, and we before we knew it, everyone was inside and snapping the well known Hazard room. Now it was just up to BenWRX and Spook to try and stop us from wandering into the alarmed parts whilst showing us the sights. We took in as much as was possible, including the tunnels, dentist chair and tower.
One of the highlights had to be the room i have simply titled medical supply room, which contained, believe it or not, a plethora of discarded medical supplies, including disposable gowns, tubes, things you use to look in ears, bandages, and various…err…inplements to do unspeakable acts to intimate areas.

The site is in excellent condition, the ornate corridors are completely free of graffiti and vandalism, while art deco glass light shades still swing from the ceilings. Due to the fact the building is alarmed and attached to an active hospital, there is even electricity going to alot of them!

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With Simpsons Pottery done and quite literally dusted, we headed over to Royal Daulton to meet up with the others. This is perhaps the most famous Stoke Pottery, and i hadn’t even realised it had closed. However, close it did, according to workers goodbye messages, in August 2005.

Firstly and foremostly, the site is HUGE, we wandered around the place for 4 hours, taking in production lines, spraying rooms, kilns, factory shop, staff canteen, power house, and of course rooftops and only covered it all between all 10 of us. This is collapsed industry on a massive scale, and of course a site this size is going to be hard for any security company to manage. Local kids have had a go at just about every window, and as a result there is glass everywhere. Fortunately, there is still loads to see, teapots still sat in kilns, and half finished ornaments can be found all over the site if one likes a good rummage.

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After an amazing Saturday at Deva, and then a textbook 28days meetup, Sunday was going to be all about the exploring, and with an hour to kill before visiting Royal Daulton, we headed down the road to Simpsons Pottery.

From documentation inside the building, i would guess it closed around 2003 / 2004. The pottery is a fine example of a small scale Stoke business, that unfortunately, and like so many others sufferred due to foriegn competition.

The building is fairly stripped, with little machinery remaining. The furnace is still in place, and though relatively small, clearly managed to fire out a shed load of pots. It’s rather sad to see fully loaded and wrapped pallets of stock as if they were about to shipped that day, open to the elements. The yard is stocked with pallets of plates, mugs, pestle and mortars, dishes, bowls, toilets, sinks, everything pottery related you can imagine. Due to the nature of the site (which is open to the elements and to the world)  it is surprising that much of the stock has not been smashed or nabbed, and i would guess in the near future it will suffer one of these unfortunate fates.

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After driving around Mansfield, lost, for quite some time, we eventually found the General, looming over one of the main roads into the town, and it was clear that the place was secured very well indeed, with several layers of 10ft fencing and a very well boarded ground floor. We already had some advice from dweeb on how to get into the grounds, and this came up very good. After tackling, walls, shrubbery, nosey neighbours, and 5 layers of fencing, we eventually got close to the buildingand scanned for an open window. A good hour later and we were in. Exploring the ground floor, we were already amazed with all the hospital artefacts left in the building, however when we headed for the staircase disaster! It was secured with a firm plank of wood or two nailing the doors together, so it was back outside.

Undeterred, and deseprately wanting to see more after our taster, we surveyed all the permiter again for a first floor window, and eventually, a good 30 minutes later we found our target, just short climb onto a low roof. Perfect!

Inside we got to see operating theatres, x-ray rooms, wards, sports hall, the security room (complete with turned on television and radio that turns itself on sporadically), we also found the staffs living quarters, canteen and shop and various patients rooms. These were all crammed with items such as beds, wheelchairs, tubes, surgical blades, old x-ray film etc etc.

All in all a fantastic explore, and after a good few hours, and a fright from signs telling us to be aware of guard dogs (complete with faecal evidence)  we decided our time was done. Albeit short, Mansfield General, i shall never forget you.