Visit 1: July 2007

Whittingham was my first 'proper' explore. The first I documented, the first time I was in a place where I really knew I shouldn't be. I had been looking forward to it for a while.

My brother had walked round the grounds before, and knew the layout a bit - he came with me. As we approached, we headed away from the social club that was in use - right round, through the grounds. The grounds are huge, and in its day would've added to the grandeur of the site. We walked past the church, and had a peek inside. Sealed tight and there was no way I was climbing about on a church looking for a way in!

Nipping through more of the grounds, heading toward Cameron House we saw people walking their dogs and casually strolling around, it made it all very relaxing. I felt less worried knowing that if questioned, I could legitimately justify being where I was.

We approached Cameron House and began tracking the fence, soon finding a way through. My heart was racing. I worried about security spotting us, and kicking us out - we quickly headed inside.

Woah, this place is trashed. I got the camera out again and started taking pictures. As well as being new to exploring, I was new to photography and had only had my camera for about a week.

We carefully and very quietly snuck around the bottom floor, I was fascinated by the way it had just, well, rotted and fallen into itself. Walking down corridors, peering into rooms with no floors in them - but with skirting board still the level of where the floor used to be. It was just so bizarre to look at. The larger rooms, day rooms I think they'd be called had very little floor remaining, and the wooden dividing walls were half hanging there - covering from ceiling, to well, nothing. There was no floor for them to mate up with just a big open vastness exposing the pipes and cables running beneath the building. The covered corridors that linked parts of the building were no longer covered, their roofs hanging down in tatters - looking like daggers suspended from the ceiling.

Venturing upstairs, the floors were in better condition. They were concrete underneath, and so had not rotted away like the lower floors. Looking further up the staircases, I could see blue sky. The roof was totally missing from this section, and the floor we were on was being sheltered by the floor above. The day rooms were just as trashed, but had a floor I felt safe walking on, in the centre of the rooms there was a hole in the centre, were I looked down into the room below.

After quite a while of carefully exploring Cameron House we headed out, and beyond the fence. Onward toward another building, after a quick peek into a boiler room type section of it, and a quick look through a window at another part. We left the site, we had run out of time. A return trip was definitely on the cards though.