Barrow Gurney

So last Saturday I headed off to Barrow Gurney Hopsital with Luke and two of his friends to take some photos of the disused hospital.

Barrow hospital was Bristol's second purpose built hospital for the treatment of the mentally ill. In 1959 changing attitudes to mental health lead to a subtle change in the hospitals name, the word mental was dropped from then on it was just Barrow Hospital. The following year 1960 the hospitals population reached a peek of 453 thou it was predicted that new community based care initiatives would lead to a decrease in patient numbers to 200 by 1975. By 2004 only three residential wards remained open at Barrow.

In 2003 Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust announced their intention to close Barrow Hospital and transfer its services to new purpose built units in a £ 60 million project, the initial plan was a phased closure to take place by 2008 but in a national survey of hospital cleanliness conducted in 2005 Barrow Hospital was found to be the dirtiest hospital in the country inspectors stated the hospital had "an unacceptably dirty environment". Two of the hospitals three remaining wards were immediately closed and their patients were transfered to other hospitals. The entire hospital closure plan was brought forward, With the final ward emptyed during the summer of 2006.

Just a few of the photos I got from the day! I stuck to my 50mm for most of the day which gave me the beautiful bokeh in some of the photos. The spider web photo isn't edited at all apart from a small crop which I'm very pleased with as I think the colours are beautiful!

And a token self-portrait ;D

My boyfriend used film on the day so doesn't have those developed yet, but he has lots of urbex stuff on Flickr if you're interested in checking them out! :)

Have you done any urbex stuff? I'd love to hear of your adventures and photos!

Chloe !