Firstly, lets address the newspaper. It's the same newspaper that has lied about me in the past so I'm going in with a massive bias. The newspapers recently complained about local rooftoppers in Shrewsbury damaging rooftops and vandalising, and as such people are associating me with the situation due to the rooftopping that I do. I want to say something on the matter even though I know I might just be giving them ammo. But saying nothing to deprive them of ammo doesn't work! If they have nothing to work with they make stuff up to fill the blanks! Ultimately if the media wants someone smited, then they shall be smited. Bloggers like me have the advantage in that we don't insult the intelligence of our readers. I know my readers are smart enough to know that I'm nothing to do with the local vandals. My views on vandalism are pretty clear- I will not go somewhere if the means of access is destructive, and I leave everything as I find it. I do not associate with vandals nor do I vandalise. If someone has gone onto the rooftops and smashed stuff, then that is nothing to do with me. Personally I feel sorry for anyone who can't appreciate the world, and enjoy life without needing to destroy something. But I'm in no rush to want to spend time with them.
People have commented on this newspapers website with the usual melodrama, as if this story is the worst thing since the holocaust. This is exactly what the media sets out to do, so no surprise there. And while some of the comments on the newspaper website do talk about me personally, I don't see the point in replying to them because the people who do read, believe and comment on newspapers are not likely to be people I can have intelligent conversations with, because their opinions have been made for them.
The thing about media-inspired melodrama is it comes in fads. Once it was the EU, then it was Pokemon Go. Sometimes it's immigrants. On this one day it was rooftopping. A week from now this will be forgotten and the media will have us chasing some other vendetta. Probably to do with that orange fellow in America. Douglas Fart or whatever his name is.
Seriously, guys, lay off the Americans. Choosing between Trump and Clinton is like getting raped but getting to choose the brand of lube. Ultimately, you're still getting raped. But at least they have a president now with a hilarious Twitter feed. But I digress.
While nothing can justify vandalism, I can defend my own love of the rooftopping sport. Five hundred years from now, will anyone give a shit that I climbed on buildings? Probably not. However, five decades from now when my body doesn't work and I might well be on my death bed, it will mean everything to me that I lived my life when I could. For all I know I could have lost my mind to dementia and sitting in a care home, a shadow of my former self, but at least my room will be decorated with my photos and the carers will be like "Wow, this person had a great life."
And yes, rooftopping is dangerous, but what would you consider a better way to live my life? Drugs? Getting drunk at the weekend? These are societal norms but are they any more productive? Perhaps you'd suggest sitting at home and watching TV while my limbs slowly forget what they even evolved for?
I personally don't watch TV. It's too dangerous! People live their entire lives without living at all. It's terrifying!
I'm annoyed that vandals have done this but I am not associated with them. I am firmly against harming anything or anyone. My life is mine to enjoy. So let's crack on with the latest adventure.
Todays adventure is right here in Shrewsbury, within walking distance. I do enjoy road trips in the Raptormobile, but the satnav is a real pervert, always telling me to take her second exit. Truth is, this adventure is long overdue. I began scouting this place out last summer, and I've now explored it three times solo and once with my accomplice, Tree Surgeon. With demolition looming, I was going to wait until it was gone before blogging about it but then it was broken into, in spite of my own way in being non-destructive and still present, but obviously not as much fun. Since then it became pretty common knowledge, and suffered a spot of vandalism, which will likely get worse until the demolition crews arrive. We are of course talking about Radbrook College.
*Cue dramatic music*
Radbrook College was constructed in 1898, as the Shropshire Technical School for Girls. It was funded by the trust of Lady Catherine Herbert, who in 1716 willed huge amounts of money for the support of poor girls in Shropshire. Later it became the Shropshire College of Domestic Science and Dairy Work, which sounds woefully more sexist but the school itself was successful. In 1957, the Headmistress, Aileen King, even published a book, Better Cookery, that was a bestseller at the time.
In 1982, the horticultural aspect of the college transferred to Walford College, and it was renamed "Radbrook College." It's pretty gigantic, too! Its ginormity (What? Thats totally a word!) was further built on in the 1960s with a huge modern extension that looks almost like a completely different building.
See? Only two photos in and it's like I'm blogging about a different place.
Here is the entrance to the "Elements" salon, which actually operated as a training facility for students and a salon for the public. When Radbrook closed in 2014, the salon facility moved to Shrewsbury College under the new name, "Evolve." The name change was part of a competition and someone won an Ipad for it. How geniusly simple! It's always applaudable when something so obvious wins the day. The bitter folk will say "I could have thought of that." But the point is, they didnt. Congratulations to the winner of the Ipad.
Here's an entrance for Edge Hill University students. Edge Hill university is actually up north but runs a few courses around the UK for distance learners. Radbrook college was apparently one such campus.
Intriguingly this door on the older, Victorian portion of the building and advertises a counselling service. This was probably for students.
An old bike shed is around the back, slowly gathering rust.
This door leads to some kind of cellar, inaccessible via the interior but oddly had a road leading from it right over to a bush.
Hmm. How fast does a bush grow?
Over on that gate you can seea sign that warns that this site is protected by security. And yes, in my initial scouting missions I did have to evade security. But time and patience has allowed me to figure out how to get in and out undetected.
These signs were everywhere but I'm pretty sure they applied prior to 2014 when the place was still open.
Dotted around the college are a few exterior buildings. Of note are the cabins.
"Second Chance" is, I think, a place for people with acquired brain injury to redevelop their skills.
From what I've heard this little bungalow was a place for people with learning disabilities. It was impossible to get into but had a nice plaque giving credit for its existence to the Shrewsbury Rotary Club.
Of the other buildings, the Radbrook complex has quite a few. But it was the college I wanted, all huge and looming, and covered in scars of vandlism, smashed windows and such. I tried to get in over the summer. Finding the ground floor windows nicely barricaded, I sought a higher up one, found one that was smashed, reached through the smashage to open it properly, and consequentially slipped and cut my hand reasonably deeply across the knuckle of my index finger. And it sure did bleed! Can you believe it? Six years I've been scaling the buildings of Shrewsbury and this is my first injury. It shook me somewhat because it happened around the same time as the cyanide incident in Wyle Cops secret underbelly, during which I honestly thought I was going to die.
So I clasped my remaining hand over my injured one to contain the blood and began the long walk to A&E. And then something amazing happened! I was just walking along and two people outside their home, getting into their car, recognised me. I asked them if they could drive me to the hospital and they were cool with it.
See, why do "urban explorers" wear their silly masks and try to conceal their identity? For starters, you just look suspicious. And then there's the fact that doing this thing maskless in a small town very possibly saved my finger. I mean sure, it's never been the same since. It was cut right down to the tendon and the bloody thing got infected! But it could have been much worse if I hadn't been recognised by my readers and offered a lift. My readers are the best. Their donations paid for my camera in 2015, and then they saved my finger a year later. Thank you to everyone who has ever helped me and this blog.
But needless to say after the cyanide incident and the finger incident, I needed a break. So I rode off to London for a bit where I found the house from Spaced, hugged Amanda Palmer, got within stroking distance of Neil Gaiman, told Danny Shine I was in the porn industry, and made friends with the sister of the actress who played Mel in "My Parents Are Aliens."
What? I don't meet famous people often enough. I take my claims to fame where I can get them. I mean prior to this I've been hugged by Professor Elemental, groped the butt of Voltaire (and
I returned to Shropshire and explored an abandoned fetish club and wrote a bunch of other blog posts. But Radbrook still eluded me, and so I kept checking in on it until I found a way in. This time it was perfect. This was completely non-destructive to the building, and nobody would get any part of their body impaled on anything. Quite simply, a door was unlocked.
So here's the main entrance to Radbrook, with two offices either side of it. Directly in front is this massive staircase to the upper floor.
And just behind that is this big blue hall that I guess could possibly have been used for exams or something.
In the middle of the hall is a lone brick, lying where it landed after someone threw it through a window. Make no mistake, I am not the first to come here. During my original scouting trips I did notice that some windows had gotten smashed and boarded up. Plenty of people had broken in and maybe even looted the place.
Behind some of the wall panels in this hall, the alarm bells were visible.
Behind the main stairway was another stairway but this one led down into a tiny cellar.
Seriously, this is all there is. Given the size of the building I was expecting something more cavernous. I wasn't left too disappointed, as I actually found multiple cellars later on.
Moving on to the offices by the main entrance, I found them still mostly furnished.
Apparently the contents of these offices are protected by a human called Ted. And so far, in spite of the break ins, people seem to have left the room in peace. Look at it. If it wasnt for Teds trolley, you'd think this office was still being used.
Ted keeps his phone on the floor.
Making my way back into the hallway, I was spoiled for choice. Radbrook is quite labyrinthian. But I decided to stick to the ground floor of the older building before checking out the upstairs, before moving onto the modern portion of the building.
This fundraiser poster in the main hallway shows that Radbrook managed to raise £3663.48 for charity before closure.
I'm assuming that this was some sort of reception area.
So much of this has just been left. They could literally decide to reopen Radbrook college tomorrow, and they'd really only need to hoover and furnish it. And of course repair a bunch of windows.
The halls are sprawling. There are multitudes of ways of getting to the exact same place, and with so many offices and classrooms now lacking definition, one needs a keen sense of direction to know which rooms one hasn't already been into.
In a small walk-in cupboard we found something of interest.
All of this was for computers. Now I know nothing about computers, but Tree Surgeon does. And he was quick to notice and drool over this stuff. Particularly a little silver box.
It's labeled "uniterruptible power supply" and basically provides power to all of the colleges computers in the event of a power cut or something, so that nobody would lose work if power went down. Apparently these cost a bomb. It's quite sad to see this just left here.
The sign directs to the Elements salon which is in the modern portion of the building, and the museum, which looks curiously like it should be a church. We'll come back to that...
This chair is exactly as we found it, creepily facing the toilet.
At the part of the college facing the main road were some larger rooms that evidence had me thinking might have been for needlecraft, textiles, crafts and that sort of thing.
But carrying on through a door, which to my delight had signs of once being large and arched, we came to the rooms that led out through the exterior door marked counselling office. So presumably all of this was for that purpose.
I'm really not sure what this step leading up to an indent in the wall once was. Another doorway perhaps?
The councelling offices are a nice relaxing blue, with cupboards in disguise as regular doors.
So what made me think that the purple room was for crafts? Well, firstly the lack of carpet and the sink in the corner reminded me of art and creative rooms that one often sees in schools and colleges. And secondly, through the connected councelling offices was a staircase to what appears to be a supply attic.
Written on one of the cupboard doors is "Artist Materials."
But also on the cupboards was this scrawl, asking that the tiles, tea chests, and materials remain in this attic, but also with the curious instruction to ask the childcare department for further information.
Further wall scrawls insisted that these cupboards do not be emptied, as of August 2005. Sadly for whoever wrote this, the cupboards are bare.
However, this section of the college also had a cellar! And it was far larger than the last one.
Over in the corner is the remains of a coal shute, now blocked up.
A brush is mounted on the wall.
And what appears to be a Santa suit has been left behind.
But best of all, we weren't alone. Check this beautiful lady out.
Doesn't she have great legs?
Moving on from the cellar, there was a section of the college that apparently served as a museum. But the stained glass windows gave it a very chapel vibe. This was the only part of the entire building that had stained glass windows but the interior had clearly been modified, assuming it was once a chapel.
And in all likelihood, Radbrook probably did have a chapel for the students, since Victorian schools often did. Take a look at Shrewsbury Library, and it's fairly obvious which part of it was a former chapel. Radbrooks appears to now be a museum.
There are multitudes of staircases at Radbrook and given that the stained glass windows follow the staircase, I assume these stairs have always been here even though there's not a lot left that resembles a chapel.
The doors in this area made mention of a museum.
Of course, a culinary museum makes a museums presence a little more fitting with its former role as a school for "domestic sciences." Allegedly the culinary museum had a jar of pickles on display that dated back to the 1930s, along with other artifacts dating back to the colleges early days.
None of that remained anymore.
This wooden door was at the back of the chapel area and led to a small brick area that I presume once had a toilet.
And best of all the chapel area was home to the colleges third cellar!
It's not the most exciting cellar I've ever been in, but can't complain!
Some might say I should have burst into flames if I'd entered the church, but I'm full of surprises. I have a knack for getting into places I shouldn't be and God knows that he can't strike me down until the razorwire is securely placed on the gates of Heaven.
And dont be telling me that Hell is where the party is at. In the bible, when the character Satan is first introduced, he's in Heaven with God, and they're watching some guy who is named after something that loads of people in Britain want but blame immigrants on their inability to get. Satan's like "God, I bet I can get Job to stop believing in you. Shall I nip down and give him a week or so of horrendous bad luck?" And God's like "Game on, Satan."
So yeah, Hell didn't exist in the original draft. And God was a dick.
Moving on to the upper levels of the college, at the top of the stairs was this picture frame layout, consisting of a large central arch and two smaller ones and a couple of circles.
There's also a really fancy window layout if one looks up.
Guessing by the shape, this painting used to stand in the central arch, with the circular bits going in the circular frames. Two others would have been in the smaller arch.
The upstairs was a lot more labyrinthian than the downstairs. There were stairways and coridors everywhere.
It's like exploring an Escher painting.
The hallways were pretty twisty, and led to various classrooms and offices.Allegedly these may have served as dorms back in the colleges distant past.
Some of the doors were still labeled, like the staff common room.
Presumably it had comfy furniture, but all of thats gone. It does have an attached kitchen though.
This door is labeled "Assistant Head of School and Program Leader- Tourism."
Some of the staff members still had their names on their office doors.
The Unison rep doesn't get a real door sign. Just a piece of paper pinned to his door.
These windows led onto a balcony that I very cautiously stepped out onto the get a photo of my arch nemesis, Big Brother.
Big Brother didn't even notice me. He's too busy looking down at the ground. So negative, bro.
There are lifts too, although the narrow winding coridors dont seem wheelchair friendly.
The sign on this door says "Meeting in progress."
Onto the Finance section, which was still labeled.
There were some other classrooms which were labeled health and social care.
There's not a lot left of this area.
Check this out. This is some writing on the white board from 2014. It's still there! Anyone could have come along and just wiped this all away but it hasn't happened.
At the back of the Health and Social Care area was a staircase that were apparently off limits, although why is anyones guess. They were pretty samey with all the other billions of staircases I'd traversed at this point. At the bottom was some kind of storage area and what looked like a derelict toilet.
Still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.
But to conclude the upper levels of the Victorian building, there was a really creepy attic.
This spider-web is huge, and full of flies.
I'm not sure why but a small portion of the attic was walled off and made into a separate room.
But it's very small, given the slanted roof.
Returning to the ground floor...
This hallway still has a couple of the original decorative boards left up from when the college was still open. This one has historical photos of college activities.
There's also this board of case studies, where stories of students who have gone on to become successful are put on display to brag and inspire.
And I don't mean bragging in a negative way. I personally am of the opinion that if someone has something they're proud of, brag away! Even the title of this blog is a cheeky brag in its own way. I think pride, and bragging, is great if someones not nasty about it. The college had successful students, and it's allowed to be proud of that. Pride is only a sin because with pride comes confidence, and a self-sustaining ego, and with that comes an immunity to being controlled. This is why a lot of people who do come across happy, confident people, are quick to put them down and call them arrogant. It's all about power, even on the most miniscule of social levels. When someone tries to keep you down, it's because they fear that you could be their superior. What people need to realise is that hierarchys are stupid. The only person we should feel superior to is out past self.
Here's an interesting old slab from 1949 which makes mention of Offley Wakeman, who the Wakeman school is named after.
The first room I came across was clearly a catering room.
All of the appliances have long since been cleared out but the whiteboard still had writing on it.
There's a smalller kitchen area, which now only has cupboards in it.
The Edge Hill university sign points to some small rooms at the end of the hallway.
And they're quire featureless but these small rooms are not without their clues. The cupboards and shelves are still labeled with what used to go on them.
So this cupboard is for musical instruments, sound cards, sugar paper, large measuring cylinders, string telephones and bingo cards.
It seems like an odd collection of things for a college to have a stock off. A school for younger students, maybe, but not a college.
Okay, so here we have labels for wooden blocks and a little tikes mountain. Allegedly this was for childcare students. In much the same way Radbrook ran the Elements salon, it also ran a nursery for students to get real experience.
The contents of this drawer are a little more understandable.
On a door I found this "learning journey" of a student called Sally Clover, which details things that she learned throughout her life, from her early childhood to her A-Levels. It seems that she did hairdressing but then decided instead to study health and social care. Given the abysmal pay rate of the care industry, I wonder if she has any regrets.
This red door was covered in positive words, such as "Social Intelligence" and "Appreciation of Beauty." What could possibly be behind this door???
Loads of massage beds, that's what!
And once again, there was still writing on the white board, some of which was clearly from when this was a functioning classroom and some which was clearly drawn after.
There was a first aid box at the back of the massage room, Most of it had been emptied except... finger dressings.
Seriously, finger dressings! After I injured myself trying to get in during my early scouts of this place. This is hilarious! Good one, God.
Here's the interior entrance to the Elements salon. The hallways beyond this point were painted light pink, and it all still had the faint odour of beauty product.
So as a reminder, all of this was open to the public, for various beauty treatments at the hands of the students and the overseeing college staff. There are a number of large, spacious rooms, and a surprising amount left over.
The last time I saw one of these chairs was in Utopia. Of course I had no idea what it was back then, and why would I? Utopia is an abandoned fetish club. Why would this thing be there? Here it's a lot more fitting though.
Curiously, in the toilets of the Elements salon, someone had broken open the tampon dispenser, stolen all of the tampons and left the machines batteries on the side.
Who goes into a ladies toilet and steals all of the tampons? Has that Control-your-bladder guy gone into anti-tampon activism?
There are old curtain rails around this area, presumably so that clients could get some privacy. It is curious that the curtains were removed but not the chairs from the other room.
There are shower facilities here, and a small toilet cubicle, although the toilet is absent.
But still, that toilet is still in better condition than some of the toilets in pubs and clubs.
On the window is a user guide for the college sauna.
What? Doesn't your college have a sauna?
Making my way out of the Elements Salon, this modern portion of the college did have an upper level accessible by two staircases.
Interestingly the sign on the wall still claims that this is the Elements Salons, even though the Elements Salon had a big welcoming sign over the door and was aesthetically completely different to this hallway, which has a lot more in common with a typical college hallway. It's probable that this is where the students worked when they weren't facing the general public in the main salon, maybe.
As you can imagine, the classrooms up here are very samey.
But of them all, these pink rooms actually look like salon rooms, with the ceiling curtains and whatnot.
They had these little cubicles in them that I presume were either for storage or locking away naughty students.
On one of them is the remains of some sort of creative paper decoration with leaves and such.
The curtain rails are still good to go. They just lack the curtain.
And of course, these other salon rooms had shower facilities too.
At the end of this hallway was this small room, with a red carpet. The sunlight reflecting off it gave the room a red glow.
And it had a balcony. I wonder what this was for.
And at the opposite end of the hallway was the student locker area. And I found quite a few leftover items in these lockers!
Files containing old college work and an old timetable.
And there's a letter talking about a trip to a live clothes show for hair and beauty students in 2013.
The locker room also had a small attached toilet.
And it also had an attic, although it's hard to imagine hair and beauty students spent a whole lot of time climbing the ladder to get to it even though its at the back of their locker room.
There's this door that led onto a balcony, but that particular balcony was right in the line of sight of where the security was stationed.
Onto the rest of the college!
Am old poster from "Anti-bullying week."
As the halls continued, it came to another fork, where someone had put a massage bed into the womens toilets.
These toilets are actually remarkably clean, and full of anti-drug posters.
Again, in the ladies toilets all the tampons have been stolen from the tampon dispenser.
And the toilet is once again absent. It sure is curious how some toilets have been removed but not all.
In the final years of Radbrooks time, it was incorporated into Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology, as a separate campus. I didn't know that until after I'd explored it, and at the time I was quite baffled by this sign mentioning Shrewsbury College.
So this hallway leads to a cluster of rooms, that appear to be for Care & Education, Catering and business studies.
The Care & Education room is right across from two former kitchens.
As with the last kitchen, all of the appliances have been removed.
But oddly enough at there is another room at the back whose purpose escapes me. It has fancy lights and a strange bar area at the back.
This was allegedly Descartes, a restaurant open to the public, where catering students could actually serve people, in much the same way the Elements Salon worked.
The Business Studies section is up yet another, but thankfully last staircase.
There's this little store room which is only for IT Support to enter. I wonder what they left behind!
There's a book!
The hallway of the Business Studies area is decorated with anti-drug posters and photos of former students.
Making my way back to the ground floor, I found towards the back the college cafeteria.
Again, the kitchen is stripped off its appliances.
This camera did make me wonder but on inspection I realised that this wasn't anything to do with the security outside, but was part of the old colleges security and was as such no longer operational.
But quite a lot still remained here. The walls were decorated with old menus and adverts.
This light has been out of order since 2014.
These glasses and coke can have likely been here since the college closed.
This is the kitchens walk-in fridge, left open and barren.
The interior of the fridge.
There's a toilet at the back of the kitchen but oddly this is for ladies only, although someone has jokingly written "and Mark." It's good to know that the staff at Radbrook had a sense of humour.
In this toilet was this remarkable contraption, labeled the Bunnie Incinerator.
What I've learned is that Bunnie is an old term for sanitary towel, and that this machine is for disposing of them. I've never seen one before, and neither has Tree Surgeon, although lacking the correct anatomy for this to be relevant, thats not a surprise. But when I showed this to Raptor, she'd never seen one either! This is a real vintage find, and its existence here at Radbrook was known only to female kitchen staff, and Mark.
Beyond the kitchen was the canteen.
It's very surreal to think that only a few years ago this was a busy area packed with students.
It still has its noticeboard, full of information for the students.
This poster applies to so many people.
I assume that beneath this sign was a games machine. I just find it hilarious but also somewhat lamentable that the college needed a disclaimer to stop people accusing them of having a gambling machine. I think it's sad that we've entered an era where we're so terrified of people nitpicking that we have to have disclaimers everywhere.
Someone took this sign a little too literally and cleared the tables away...
Oddly enough, I found one poster of the colleges opening times written in pen blue-tacked over a printed variant.
Entering into the final hallway of the college, only four rooms remained.
The first room was rather petite. I have no idea what it could have been used for.
But this room here was clearly some kind of classroom.
And by the door, isn't that HAL 9000 from a 2001: A Space Odyssey??? Was he running this college the whole time???? What were they thinking putting him in charge???
I guess this college ran a few GCSE courses too. This isn't odd at all. Loads of colleges run GCSE courses so that people who fail Maths and English in school can redo them.
Students apparently needed to swipe ID cards for this section of the college.
Don't fall for it! It's all part of HAL 9000s plan!
Do my younger readers even know what I'm talking about? Do even my same-age readers know? Damn me and my love of the classics.
In the next room, HAL 9000 has given the students instructions on how to be safe on the internet. The first point it makes is about not disclosing ones real name, telephone number or other personal details. This means HAL 9000 might be slightly less evil than Facebook.
This room had loads of student work still on display on the walls and windows.
There's a poster about good computer posture. I guess this room was full of computers.
Finally, there was a large hall that was labeled "Learning resource centre." I assume this means library and study area.
On the ground there are imprints presumably of where the furniture used to be.
It does look like the lights are on in this room but actually there are a series of ceiling windows.
Here's a security gate, to stop students stealing anything.
At the back were a couple of study rooms.
This was on the far wall of the library. Its an area where the walls havent been painted, and its obviously where something once hung on the wall.
Now, one of the study rooms had a pretty creepy mess in it.
On the surface, it's a bunch of college work and tea cups but then we noticed the condom wrappers.
Surprisingly, there are no used condoms but plenty of open packets, so whoever came here to use them cleaned up that part of the mess. But even so, there are loads of condom leaflets around.
An overdue essay on human evolution. Whatever floats your boat!
A condom leaflet typically comes with every box of condoms, and the minimal amount possible in a box of durex tends to be two. It used to be three, but check Bodycare. You can buy a box of two for £1. Tree Surgeon and I did some basic maths, counting the leaflets and multiplying by two, and concluded that by this logic at least forty condoms have been used here, unless of course some were taken home afterwards, and of course, we can't guarantee that every purchase was a two-pack. For all we know, each one was a twelve-pack, in which case, whoevers been coming here is some sort of sex robot.
Is this your doing, HAL 9000???
Some condoms are still in their packaging, and the coffee grinder and mugs imply someone was doing more than just having sex here but actually spending a lot of time. The most baffling inclusion to the messy scene is all the old student work.
This stockroom is a lot more sensible. All it has is a wall covered in blue tack from where posters used to hang.
And there are some keys hanging on a hook.
At the back of the library is a small shower block. What? Doesn't your local library have shower facilities?
At the far end of the college was a sign warning against students using this exit.
And that is where Radbrook ends. At least on the interior. I am a rooftopper, and as such I couldn't resist climbing the building too!
Here I have a view of some of the outbuildings, including this house which has recently been purchased but I understand was once part of Radbrook too, and that staff once lived therew..
And of course I can see the disability bungalow from here.
The older portion of the Radbrook building has three flag towers on it, and to my delight, they're covered in signatures spanning decades, some dating back to the 1920s.
People ask me if I ever sign these things myself and I have to say, I don't. I've outgrown the concept now. Why does anyone need to sign anything? I mean I'm glad they did, as it makes for a great addition to my adventure. But it's not for me. Isn't it the same mentality as taking souvenirs? Is it about "proving" that the adventure happened? But thats why I bring a camera. Is it the humans need for dominance or conquest, or a petty need to prove oneself? Well I dont need to prove myself. I made myself from nothing and now I have an excellent life. When your life is excellent, you don't need to vandalise anything or hurt anyone to prove to the world that you are there. Happiness starts when one stops fighting for relevance. And of course, one achieves a feeling of indestructibility. I picked myself up from nothing. If it all gets taken away, I'll just do it all over again.
It does kind of put it into perspective though. All these urban explorers are going on like "urbex outlaws for life, innit" before checking their teeth to make sure there's enough missing to make them a candidate for the Jeremy Kyle show. In actual fact people have been doing this for decades. We're not outlaws, we're not special, we're just having fun.
But thats it for Radbrook. I wasn't the first to get in, nor will I be the last. How you see it in these pictures is how I found it and how I left it. So whats the future for this huge building? Well, from what I gather, the bit that was constructed in the 1960s is getting demolished, and the older Victorian building will be converted for residential purposes. This is all set to happen this year, and last time I checked, all the trees and plants around the building were being removed, and over the next few months it will only develop further.
Thats it from me.
In regards to the media, I actually found out who did vandalise the rooftops, and I screenshot the comments, and tweeted it to West Mercia Police and to the newspaper. It's covering my own back by proving my own lack of involvement, while also showing the powers that be that I am not their villain.
Of course, where the media is concerned, a villain is a requirement. The medias job is to keep us fearful, keep us locked in drama, and to keep us miserable. This is why their letters pages are full of grumbles. If they want to see the worst in someone, they will. You could rescue every child from a burning orphanage and the papers will point out that you didnt put socks on their feet. An eccentric person makes the perfect villain because society already has that "they're not like us" mentality towards them. What I've learned is that it's very easy to look at someone different, and at best refer to them as eccentric, and at worst accuse them of being mad, even suffering from some sort of personality disorder or mental disability. But if people could stop looking down their noses, they might learn that people who aren't afraid to be different are the ones enjoying life. And if someones happy then they must be doing something right, right?
The most believable part of a newspaper is the horoscopes. One time it said "Your childhood will come back to haunt you when you're feeling shit" and that same day I was yelled at for taking too long on a toilet cubicle. Whats the connection? Well I was feeling shit, literally as it left my body, and as a child I used to love the Muppet show, and the person yelling at me looked just like Miss Piggy.
Thats all I got. Share this blog post on your social media outlet of choice, and dont forget to follow me over on Instagram and Twitter. Most important of all is that you're good to each other and you do that little bit to turn someones day around. Compliment a stranger. Make someone smile. Confiscate their newspaper.
Thanks for reading. Stay awesome!
