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If you're expecting amazing photos from here turn back now, I was still using my point and shoot at this time! This post is more about the actual explore experience rather than the photos...
The British Industrial Biological Research Association (BIBRA) animal testing laboratories in Carshalton were a truly infamous site with a history of protests and animal rights violence attached. Inside, tests and research was carried out on rats to primates and everything in between, mostly for the use of the adjacent hospital but also for wider consumer products etc. It closed in the early 2000s and was pretty much left intact with only the animals being removed. After closure, the place was always known to be an alarmed fortress in the urbex community with very few people managing to pull it off as the alarms were connected to the police station with police turning up in a matter of minutes, and we rocked up sight unseen after an earlier fail not knowing what to expect.
The buildings sat atop a hill in the wealthy town of Carshalton, imposing in their drab 1960s style. Walking up to the buildings we could see that not only were most of the windows boarded up, some were boarded from the inside, or had wire mesh across them AND boards on the inside. And we could see where bigger holes had been made in windows, barricades had been constructed inside from tables, planks of wood and shelving units to stop people getting in. We checked out the open outbuilding first to see the milkfloat that was used to carry chemicals and animals around the site, before finding a stupidly tight squeeze through a high window that had been barricaded with a table leaving just enough of a gap for us to fit through, and we were in. I can honestly say, hand on heart, I have never felt so unsettled and weird in a location before or since, I don't often feel things inside places but this site was almost oppressive, a real heavy feel hung over me and my two companions, a proper bad energy in the place.
We orientated ourselves and began looking around, everything was in situ, nothing removed in any of the laboratories. After an hour or so, we made our way out of one of the large labs and along the first-floor corridor when my companions stopped, turned and came running back, looking worried. They said they had heard what at first they thought was a dripping pipe but gradually realised it was an alarm on the outside, so quick as a flash we ran, somehow squeezed ourselves back through the access very quickly and legged it down the hill, ducking under a fence and straight across the path of a Land Rover heading to the field next door to feed the horses. A quick stop at the edge of the site before heading onto the pavement just as a Police Jeep pulled out of the golf club opposite! Luckily it turned and went the other way and we walked off, back past the site laughing and listening to the alarm blaring loudly!
The entire site was demolished in 2011 to make way for a school, still, I feel privileged to have seen at least some of the place as many others tried and failed before and after this visit!
More here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157624683121087/
The British Industrial Biological Research Association (BIBRA) animal testing laboratories in Carshalton were a truly infamous site with a history of protests and animal rights violence attached. Inside, tests and research was carried out on rats to primates and everything in between, mostly for the use of the adjacent hospital but also for wider consumer products etc. It closed in the early 2000s and was pretty much left intact with only the animals being removed. After closure, the place was always known to be an alarmed fortress in the urbex community with very few people managing to pull it off as the alarms were connected to the police station with police turning up in a matter of minutes, and we rocked up sight unseen after an earlier fail not knowing what to expect.
The buildings sat atop a hill in the wealthy town of Carshalton, imposing in their drab 1960s style. Walking up to the buildings we could see that not only were most of the windows boarded up, some were boarded from the inside, or had wire mesh across them AND boards on the inside. And we could see where bigger holes had been made in windows, barricades had been constructed inside from tables, planks of wood and shelving units to stop people getting in. We checked out the open outbuilding first to see the milkfloat that was used to carry chemicals and animals around the site, before finding a stupidly tight squeeze through a high window that had been barricaded with a table leaving just enough of a gap for us to fit through, and we were in. I can honestly say, hand on heart, I have never felt so unsettled and weird in a location before or since, I don't often feel things inside places but this site was almost oppressive, a real heavy feel hung over me and my two companions, a proper bad energy in the place.
We orientated ourselves and began looking around, everything was in situ, nothing removed in any of the laboratories. After an hour or so, we made our way out of one of the large labs and along the first-floor corridor when my companions stopped, turned and came running back, looking worried. They said they had heard what at first they thought was a dripping pipe but gradually realised it was an alarm on the outside, so quick as a flash we ran, somehow squeezed ourselves back through the access very quickly and legged it down the hill, ducking under a fence and straight across the path of a Land Rover heading to the field next door to feed the horses. A quick stop at the edge of the site before heading onto the pavement just as a Police Jeep pulled out of the golf club opposite! Luckily it turned and went the other way and we walked off, back past the site laughing and listening to the alarm blaring loudly!
The entire site was demolished in 2011 to make way for a school, still, I feel privileged to have seen at least some of the place as many others tried and failed before and after this visit!
More here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157624683121087/
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