It's actually called Buckston Browne Farm, but if I'd put the word 'farm' in the title you probably wouldn't have clicked it would you :roll: It was a research establishment for the Royal College of Surgeons, England from the 1930's up to the early 1990's when it closed.
The place gets its name from Sir George Buckston Browne, who was a British medical doctor and pioneer urologist in the first half of the 20th century. In 1927 he bought Charles Darwin's former home Down House and founded the Buckston Brown Research Farm in Downe in 1931. The Buckston Browne Prize is named for him. Down house is infact round the corner from the farm, the house now preserved and open to tourists, but the farm its self sits empty including it's own quite large house.
In the 1980s, the farm caused controversy because of its use of vivisection techniques, and in August 1984 it was raided by anti-vivisection activists.
This place is pretty grim really when you realise the sort of work that went on there, particularly in it's earlier days when such things wern't as tightly regulated as they are now. There's medical papers all over the internet which describe some of the research done there in quite some detail - for me it was quite uncomfortable reading some of them.
Never-the-less, it was a good explore and was worth the trip, the house is quite nice with some good features still present. The research labs are damp, dreary and quite decayed, but interesting to walk round.
Was quite fun day with Obscurity plus friend who isn't on here, so we'll just call him 'M'
Some great carvings on the bannister post caps.
That was the house, now the research labs
Old 16mm projector
2 of the 3 large rooms were filled with a lot of bits and pieces that seemed to have little to no relation to the place.
Labs
All in all a good mooch for a Saturday afternoon.
Thanks for looking,
Maniac.
The place gets its name from Sir George Buckston Browne, who was a British medical doctor and pioneer urologist in the first half of the 20th century. In 1927 he bought Charles Darwin's former home Down House and founded the Buckston Brown Research Farm in Downe in 1931. The Buckston Browne Prize is named for him. Down house is infact round the corner from the farm, the house now preserved and open to tourists, but the farm its self sits empty including it's own quite large house.
In the 1980s, the farm caused controversy because of its use of vivisection techniques, and in August 1984 it was raided by anti-vivisection activists.
This place is pretty grim really when you realise the sort of work that went on there, particularly in it's earlier days when such things wern't as tightly regulated as they are now. There's medical papers all over the internet which describe some of the research done there in quite some detail - for me it was quite uncomfortable reading some of them.
Never-the-less, it was a good explore and was worth the trip, the house is quite nice with some good features still present. The research labs are damp, dreary and quite decayed, but interesting to walk round.
Was quite fun day with Obscurity plus friend who isn't on here, so we'll just call him 'M'
Some great carvings on the bannister post caps.
That was the house, now the research labs
Old 16mm projector
2 of the 3 large rooms were filled with a lot of bits and pieces that seemed to have little to no relation to the place.
Labs
All in all a good mooch for a Saturday afternoon.
Thanks for looking,
Maniac.
