One of the things that has always stuck us
as one of Hellingly's most notable assets (and certainly one of the things which will be a costly loss once the place is finally redeveloped) is that, due to the massive throughput of visitors and the sheer randomness of the place, there is a huge amount of scope for things that may look a little strange and unusual!
Most of the photos here are of things that we just stumbled upon and any that appear to be staged have been done so by previous groups of explorers. Some of them are really quite strange.
Some of them don't really require any setting up and just encompass the weirdness of this awesome building.
ABOVE: This sight moved some of us in quite an unpleasant way. We found this key rack towards the end of a day's exploring and it drove home the fact that this wasn't the huge adventure playground it i often regarded as - people were kept here under lock and key because they were deemed unfit for integration into society at large. It makes you think.
ABOVE: There were a great many hatches in the ceilings of the upper level corridors. I suppose they might be good for finding long lost artefacts, but miles and miles of roof voids was a bit too freaky for us.
ABOVE: This room was close by what used to be the old Engineering and Maintenance Depot, close by the base of the Water Tower. This room is absolutely crammed full of old car exhaust pipes. A few had been moved to strategic places around the site, giving the impression that they were stalking us!
ABOVE & BELOW: Child's Restraint Chair. It wasn't just insane adults that lived here. Obviously placed for photographic effect - it is very doubtful that this level of solitary confinement would ever have been used.
ABOVE: Not very well...
ABOVE: This was very daft indeed. All this plasterboard and smashed up stuff and a potato masher just randomly dropped in the middle of it all. Someone has a bizarre sense of humour!
