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| The cafeteria noticeboard |
This time we trundled out from High Street Kensington station to explore the Wimbledon branch, one of the flailing western arms of the District line. In early summer it's busy, depended upon by thousands as transport to the tennis. At Southfields the cars empty of all passengers and we continue, in an empty carriage, to the end of the line at Wimbledon. When we get there we trot across the busy high street, and turn off it, towards suburban calm. It's a short walk along well-ordered streets in the sun.
Our destination is the old Atkinson & Morley hospital on Copse Hill, abandoned since 2003. I came out here a week ago but I couldn't get into the main building, its windows boarded up and its doors firmly locked. There's a security guard stationed at the hospital entrance but in my experience he's happy to stay there if we give him no compelling reason to look around. We would enter through the back, have a little explore and leave the way we'd come in, without treading on his toes. It was a gentleman's arrangement that both parties respected.
We climbed the high wooden fence into the hospital grounds. The first time I came I spent a long time listening for strange sounds, poking my head around corners, making sure I was alone. But this time we were gung-ho, each of us emboldened by the presence of another transgressor. We made too much noise and closed in on our target too quickly.
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| The kitchen |
On the first trip I'd almost found a way inside, by climbing onto a concrete beam and sidling along it to a gap in the boards. From my vantage point I could just see inside a gloomy hospital ward stripped of beds and equipment. I didn't stay up there long; it felt too exposed, and when I heard a noise (or imagined I did) I flew, like a graceless bird, from the top of the beam to the concrete below. I lay long there long enough to feel the circulation of blood slowing to my legs. When I got up, discomfort
beating down fear, whatever it was had gone. I hadn't been seen.
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| A collection of old medical records |
This time I made straight for the beam. But in the week between visits they'd boarded up the gap. I was sitting high up on the beam looking down around me, wondering what to do next when I spotted the reflective vest of the man tapping numbers into his phone. It was too late to lie down flat; I called out to tell him we were leaving. We scaled the fence and walked sheepishly up to where he stood waiting for us. His accent was West African and he tried to make us feel bad, and I did, but only for his sake. The old hospital doesn't wince at the tread of our feet. She's lonely, waiting on death row for redevelopment. She welcomes our casual appreciation. I said that to the man, that it was a beautiful place that we admired and would like to explore, that we hadn't caused any damage. I don't know if he understood. We had a pint and got back on the tube.
