Urban Exploration

[*Amy*]

Does what it says on the tin, really. Visiting old derelict buildings and letting others see. I've just been introduced to this website which does just that and there are a few places in and around Aberdeen. Some quality photos, some pretty creepy too, especially those from asylums...

UK Urban Exploration Forums

There's Satrosphere

Satrosphere Aberdeen 9/3/08 - REPORT - UK Urban Exploration Forums

and although not exactly derelict, the Bon Accord Baths

Bon Accord Baths, Aberdeen, 30/01/08 - REPORT - UK Urban Exploration Forums

For anyone who hasn't seen these yet, there's some impressive viewing!

[Swingin' Ryan]

The pictures of the Bon Accord are beautiful, but the one's of Satrosphere are so depressing, I used to love going there when I was a kid and it's all smashed up and derelict.

[framheim]

satrosphere still exists, it's near transition is it not?

[suzywoo]

yup it does its on constitution street. I used to work there back in the day...best job ever! shame about the pay

[Swingin' Ryan]

satrosphere still exists, it's near transition is it not?

Yeh, it's a new one though. The pictures are the original Satrosphere down the road from the old Odeon cinema (now Canon's Gym).

The photo's on this site are stunning, I don't know how these people manage to walk about in derelict Mental Hospital's without being terrified but the pictures are amazing. They all look like incredible film sets.

[Larsen B]

I've never been to Bon Accord Baths, they're awesome pictures though.

[pogofish]

Paolo999 is another guy to keep in mind for this.

Flickr: Photos from paolo999

[Lemonade]

Here's alot of aberdeen stuff.

UK Urban Exploration Forums - Search Results

Very impressed by this one, no idea there was such a quality shitter in Aberdeen:

Victorian Toilets in Union Terrace Gardens, Aberdeen - Report - 19/02/08 - UK Urban Exploration Forums

Great link by the way Amy, thanks for sharing. I always thought I was a total weirdo for having an interest in derelict buildings, I'm soo happy to find there's more of us!

[Lemonade]

I really want to see inside Amadeus nowadays, I've tried nosing through the front doors but you can't see much and there's no windows in the main hall. Also the Tivoli, and the upstairs of the old Palace before it became liquid (apparently it used to have a cinema on the top floor).

Edit - oh and also the old Aberdeen College building on Holburn Street, where the Talisman building now stands. Rumour has it that it was just abandoned with all the stuff still inside it, like the Mary Celeste or something. I jumped the fence to go and have a lookie once but it was all boarded up and I was too much of a pussy to break in in case anything fell on me or I got hurt (it was closed due to severe structural defects) and nobody knew where I was.

[Guest Jake Wifebeater]

Here's alot of aberdeen stuff.

Very impressed by this one, no idea there was such a quality shitter in Aberdeen:

Victorian Toilets in Union Terrace Gardens, Aberdeen - Report - 19/02/08 - UK Urban Exploration Forums

Great link by the way Amy, thanks for sharing. I always thought I was a total weirdo for having an interest in derelict buildings, I'm soo happy to find there's more of us!

There's an even higher quality bog under the Castlegate that you just walked down into from pavement level but they bricked it up years ago with everything left intact.

I too have a weird interest in derelict buildings, I love looking around in them for signs of life, how they were used, that kinda thing. I was fucking raging when they demolished the old house at 62 Skene Square and rebuilt it, there's some bizarre recent history in that building, including a suicide. That was the first place I ever got shit-faced in.

[Alan Cynic]

There used to be some great photos of Aberdeen gone by in the This Is North Scotland ex-pat's chat forum (I was impressed by some ace ones of Carnegie's Brae, looking form almost exactly outside the Tunnels back towards Markies, but waaaaaay before Markie's was built.) There was also a whole thread about lost Aberdeen lavvies, which Jake would've liked! I never knew there was one at the corner of Broomhill Road/Holburn St (not the one opposite the Holburn Bar, a different one). It drew my attention to the one almost opposite R'n'B music, which I'd never noticed before.

Sadly aberdeen Journals closed that forum down last month.

There's a new one called 'Fit Like Aiberdeen' which is trying hard to replace it, but they're careful about copyright, so no old photos unless taken by board users.

Fit like, Aiberdeen! :: Index

[Lemonade]

There's an even higher quality bog under the Castlegate that you just walked down into from pavement level but they bricked it up years ago with everything left intact.

I too have a weird interest in derelict buildings, I love looking around in them for signs of life, how they were used, that kinda thing. I was fucking raging when they demolished the old house at 62 Skene Square and rebuilt it, there's some bizarre recent history in that building, including a suicide. That was the first place I ever got shit-faced in.

Same thing happened in Fraserburgh town square, there were underground bogs there for years then during the towns 400th anniversary celebrations in 92 they just bricked them up and put a cement riser over the top cos the queen was visiting and they needed somewhere to put here to watch the parade. So they set up her tent thing on top of the old bogs. As far as I know the lavs are still there under the Saltoun Square, which is now a car park.

[Guest Laura@TMB]

Very impressed by this one, no idea there was such a quality shitter in Aberdeen

I remember these bogs well from the late 80's! I believe the owner of Cafe 52 on the Green has recently expressed an interest in leasing/buying the site from the Council and opening a bistro there. Would be good to see it happen imo.

Cues Alan Cynic for some lavatorial-themed menu items for said premises...

[Lemonade]

Like Poop of the day? Pish and chips? Bakewell Fart? Chelsea Bums? Cock-a-leekie soup? Fried Brown Trout? Cheese and air biscuits?

[Swingin' Ryan]

I remember these bogs well from the late 80's! I believe the owner of Cafe 52 on the Green has recently expressed an interest in leasing/buying the site from the Council and opening a bistro there. Would be good to see it happen imo.

They must have definitely still been open up until the early 90's because I remember them quite vividly, infact I didn't realise they'd been boarded up, I just assumed they'd be packed with junkies and rent boys so I've avoided them. As public toilets go, they are beautiful.

Following one of the links from a girl on that forum I noticed she had her own website of derelict photos and they are incredible. Some of them do involve her in her underwear strapped to rank medical equipment which I'm sure is great stuff if you like that, but I was mainly amazed at how incredible some of the places she's found are. The mental hospital ones are particularly chilling.

CONTAMINATION ZONE - Urban Photography

[Alan Cynic]

Cues Alan Cynic for some lavatorial-themed menu items for said premises...

Damn!!...Just off out to the Triptych launch......will try tomorrow!!!

[Spoonie]

yeah i totally remember them too. had a really vivid flashback looking through the pictures.

i love urban exploration websites.

[Mouse]

I was gonna post the Satrosphere ones the other day. I'm a member on 28dayslater but haven't been in there yet

[framheim]

so do folk normally break into these places or do they track folk down and get keys? i don't have the balls to try and get into these places but it would be cool to snoop around and get some photos.

[Swingin' Ryan]

so do folk normally break into these places or do they track folk down and get keys? i don't have the balls to try and get into these places but it would be cool to snoop around and get some photos.

I've spent ages looking at these sites today and from what I gather they just break in on the whole as a lot of them talk about being chased by security. Although to be fair, from the looks of most of these places I can't imagine it requires much breaking in. Some of them have been totally empty for decades, there's probably no locks.

I'd love to have a roam around in some of these places, there's something really amazing about totally preserved and abandonded areas. The idea of breaking into an abandonded mental hospital is off-putting though.

[Guest Neutral]

I went in here http://completelyneutral.net/ditto/img/urbex/DSC00395.JPG the other day, went down a flight of stairs then the two of us were shouting "hello anyone there" and kept going down another 2 flights and did it again

WTF Someone mumbled back so we legged it outside and decided to go and talk to the person inside, pretty cool we didnt have a torch

I remember going round kingseat hospital and finding vending machines still stocked

[Nicky Ca$ino]

Someone told me to check that lavatory out last year, I didn't realise they were actually closed. The ones down at the beach are similar and fantastic, when I'm having an ice-cream with The Wolf I always go in.

[Meg]

What a superb site. I grew up very close to this and my school was actually right next to it, so it was always fun if you were skiving lessons to go and hang around up there, and we even once went there on a school trip when I was in Primary. I love visiting old places like this and having a nose around. I thought I was the only one!

[Johnny Mac]

I've got loads of photos of my old work at Blairs College.

Freaky place!

I'll have to post them up.

[Plato the Greek]

There's something unsettlingly fascinating about abandoned buildings, particularly when they have been left with fixtures and fittings inside. There is an abandoned factory on the corner of Park Road and Duff Street in Aberdeen which looks really interesting. It is very secure though. There also used to be a door on Union Street up beside Jumpin' Jaks etc that you could just open, and once inside you descended into a huge derelict cellar. This was up until a couple of years ago. Does anyone remember this?

I also think that old photographs of Aberdeen are so interesting because it has changed so much in the relatively recent past. I'm a bit of a nostalgia junkie, but it's mainly a nostalgia for a past I never actually knew because I was born in 1981 when a good deal of 18th-19th century Aberdeen had already been swept away. Diane Morgan's book 'Lost Aberdeen' is a great record of what was lost. The old 'thisisnorthscotland' forum which Alan Cynic mentioned was also breathtaking. In particular, one picture shows what Queen Street used to be like before it was all but destroyed. And don't get me started on the 'regeneration' of the George Street area. The images of the Victorian Co-op shopping arcade of the Gallowgate are truly astonishing. If you wander round Aberdeen today you see a huge amount of redevelopment going on, I just hope someone is keeping a photographic record.