This all started with a text message from Obscurity/Desertion on Thursday about a new explore we'd recced a couple of weeks before. So at midnight on Friday night, Obscurity, Frosty and Fat James roll up at my house and before we know it it's 2:30am. I'm still not sure who suggested it first, but most of us ended up staying up all night in eager anticipation of the new fresh explore the next day . . . . .
Well with all our enthusiasm and the best made plans this wasn't to be our day, luck was not on our side and our origenal plans turned into an epic fail of mamouth proportions (but never fear we shall return.
) The problem we were then stuck with was what to do? Stuck in the Middle of the Kent countryside at 7:00am with no contigency plan just made the whole business of being awake for 24hrs even worse. Thanks to the power of statellite Navigation, we realised we wern't actually a million miles away from Hawkhurst so after brief discussion we ended up at good old Lillesden Mansion. I hadn't been here since May 2009 so it was interesting what another year of decay does to a place.
Now there's always some confusion with the name of this place, as it's had two uses in its time. The Mansion was built by Edward Loyd in 1855 and was known as lillesden after the name of the estate which it was on. After the great war, the mansion and estate was sold and became Bedgebury school, a private school for girls, which remained its use until the school closed in 1999. There is still a school which bears this name in the area.
In early 2009 work appered to start on the buildings, the scaffolding which you now see over parts of the roof was errected, temporary doors were put up to keep people out, all the rubbish was cleared out and they even replaced some of the lead on the roof to try and make the place watertight. Some of the stone supports were replaced by props and then, well, nothing. Work just stopped and that was that.
Doing some digging through the planning website to try and find out what's happening to this place, you can see quite a bit of the history of the building, various planning consents from the late 70's and earyl 80's, but the most interesting document is from 2009 which granted planning permission for re-development into 14 aprtments with a further 10 dwellings to be built on the ajoining land, so something will happen to this place in the not too distant future I expect.
Anyone interested, here's the link http://pa.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/online- ... WS2BW0HB00
Anyway, on with some photos. I've done something a bit different in some of these, and deliberately tried to re-take photos I took in 2008 so I could see the difference between then and now.
No one ever takes enough photos of the outside of this place, it really is quite a special building.
Inside, well it's a different story, the place really is starting to fall apart now.
ABOBE: Nov 2010 - BELOW Oct 2008
LEFT: Nov 2010 / RIGHT: Oct 2008
LEFT: Nov 2010 / RIGHT: Oct 2008
ABOVE: Nov 2010 / BELOW: Oct 2008
ABOVE: Nov 2010 BELOW: Oct 2008
If you look hard enough, there's still elements to remind you this was once a mansion house
Thanks for looking!
M.
Well with all our enthusiasm and the best made plans this wasn't to be our day, luck was not on our side and our origenal plans turned into an epic fail of mamouth proportions (but never fear we shall return.
) The problem we were then stuck with was what to do? Stuck in the Middle of the Kent countryside at 7:00am with no contigency plan just made the whole business of being awake for 24hrs even worse. Thanks to the power of statellite Navigation, we realised we wern't actually a million miles away from Hawkhurst so after brief discussion we ended up at good old Lillesden Mansion. I hadn't been here since May 2009 so it was interesting what another year of decay does to a place.Now there's always some confusion with the name of this place, as it's had two uses in its time. The Mansion was built by Edward Loyd in 1855 and was known as lillesden after the name of the estate which it was on. After the great war, the mansion and estate was sold and became Bedgebury school, a private school for girls, which remained its use until the school closed in 1999. There is still a school which bears this name in the area.
In early 2009 work appered to start on the buildings, the scaffolding which you now see over parts of the roof was errected, temporary doors were put up to keep people out, all the rubbish was cleared out and they even replaced some of the lead on the roof to try and make the place watertight. Some of the stone supports were replaced by props and then, well, nothing. Work just stopped and that was that.
Doing some digging through the planning website to try and find out what's happening to this place, you can see quite a bit of the history of the building, various planning consents from the late 70's and earyl 80's, but the most interesting document is from 2009 which granted planning permission for re-development into 14 aprtments with a further 10 dwellings to be built on the ajoining land, so something will happen to this place in the not too distant future I expect.
Anyone interested, here's the link http://pa.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/online- ... WS2BW0HB00
Anyway, on with some photos. I've done something a bit different in some of these, and deliberately tried to re-take photos I took in 2008 so I could see the difference between then and now.
No one ever takes enough photos of the outside of this place, it really is quite a special building.
Inside, well it's a different story, the place really is starting to fall apart now.
ABOBE: Nov 2010 - BELOW Oct 2008
LEFT: Nov 2010 / RIGHT: Oct 2008
LEFT: Nov 2010 / RIGHT: Oct 2008
ABOVE: Nov 2010 / BELOW: Oct 2008
ABOVE: Nov 2010 BELOW: Oct 2008
If you look hard enough, there's still elements to remind you this was once a mansion house
Thanks for looking!
M.
