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Durham County Hospital Mortuary, June 2016 | Oblivion State Urban Exploration

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Durham County Hospital Mortuary, June 2016

True_British_Metal

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Visited with Slipdrix.

Looking for time to kill before the epic that evening, we decided to take a trip to Durham with the original intention of doing Ushaw College. However, walking through the gardens and walking past this I say to Slipdrix: "Hey look, it's some derp. Looks like a hospital." Slipdrix suggests we check it out, but personally I'd have much preferred to do Ushaw, such was the original intention. However Slipdrix rejects the idea and insists we check this out. I give in.

Looking around the site, it looks very tight and secure. There's also a guard at the front, and given how sunny and warm the day is he's often outside of his cabin; he was very, very active and vigilant, believe me. So we had a look round the site more, but to be honest it was absolutely clear we wouldn't have gotten in tthe hospital so I didn't try. As a compromise, I suggest we did the mortuary. Access was nice and easy, but given how frequent the guard was patrolling, we had to be extremely careful.

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Luckily the mortuary, a small building at the back of the site fell outside of the fencing boundaries, making access far easier and inaccessible to security (or so we hoped).

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Though not in an advanced state of decay at all, the retro design of the building strongly suggests a far earlier closure date than the main hospital itself. One that hearkens back to the glory days of a county asylum, something I was too young to have experienced and others unaware of back in the golden age of the 1990s.

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After being so quiet and stealthy, we suddenly stop. Freeze. We hear whistling and walking outside; it's the security guard on a patrol. Hide in the corner...

He's doing a regular patrol, and we can tell he's not looking for us because he's not called for us. But we have to be dead silent because any sound we make could easily be heard. What was to stop him undoing the fence and peering in through the window, I thought? With Slipdrix in the corner I duck down underneath the window and wait. Our nerves shot throught the roof when he shines his laser pen through the window; was this game over? I couldn't risk it, so we waited, and waited and waited. He left.

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Slipdrix suggested we check out the main hospital, but given that it wasn't that interesting inside I said it's not worth the risk getting caught. We pondered doing the other porcelain slab down the road, but due to time constraints and lack of transport we left it. By now we didn't have time to do Ushaw if we wanted to do the main attraction that night.

I think in hindsight we'd have better stuck with Ushaw College, but we made our decision and we got something. After all, one room however epic didn't really justify an entire train journey up here. Nevertheless, a success is a success.

Thanks for reading,

TBM x

 

Dubbed Navigator

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Nice interesting read, if I didn't know any better after reading it, I'd say you sounded like a noob. Take no offence, it's just the way it sounded ;-) 

id id agree with you though, it's definitely old. Just look at the phone and plug sockets!

 

True_British_Metal

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Nice interesting read, if I didn't know any better after reading it, I'd say you sounded like a noob. Take no offence, it's just the way it sounded ;-) 

id id agree with you though, it's definitely old. Just look at the phone and plug sockets!
None taken. I'm always honest though!

 

hamtagger

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Must make the effort to see this one for myself sometime, another great report and read :)  

:comp  

 

DirtyJigsaw

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I really like the look of this, i have still not seen a porcelain slab myself yet.

 

scrappy

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well done, was an interesting read. need to get back up that way myself.

 

Urbexbandoned

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I thought I had allready commented on this then realised it was over on 28 :)  

Durham certainly has a few beauties that's for sure. Nice to see this accessible again, last I heard it was sealed tight.

Nice pics   (y)  

 
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