cane hill | walking the perimeter
29|04|02

Here’s the panoramic shot, showing urban decay in full.

In terms of architecture, the nurses didn’t get the nice bay windows, the arches, and the general Victorian splendor. No, they just got a drab, utilitarian accommodation block, haphazardly built as far away from the center of the hospital as possible. A little unfair methinks.

Notice how nature is ruthlessly destroying the hospital with a vicious assault of ivy. That will be the ultimate fate of Cane Hill hospital - as huge ivy bush. It’s romantic that it should go that way. I’d give it about five hundred years.

Note also the creepy aspect that someone has opened the third floor windows. At this point, it isn’t difficult to imagine someone up there, looking down on you. This image is reinforced by the arrival of ‘hammer man’ who proceeds to bang erratically at something within the bowels of the building.

The tidy-minded, who are worried about these opened windows, will have problems closing them. Apparently all the floors in this block have collapsed.

Let’s just say that I reached the power plant quicker than if I’d walked.


2009: "Hammer Man" was just the wind rattling window frames and causing doors to knock and slam. I was cured of this particular nervousness during a trip to Severalls Hospital. A gale was blowing and we were assaulted by a cacophony of banging doors, breaking glass and shifting tiles once we entered the main complex. You eventually got used to it.


Mid-section of the north-eastern side of the Nurses' Block. © Simon Cornwell 2002