Sandhill Park Hospital at The Black Mountains

Images from a recent urbex expedition to an abandoned hospital near Bishops Lydeard, Taunton. The site consists of a large manor house that was apparently built in the 18th century, and several more modern outbuildings. It was used as an asylum in the early 1900’s, then a prisoner of war camp in world war 2. After this, it became a home for handicapped children, until closure in 1991and it would seem the manor house was briefly a fire-engine museum.

The outbuildings, where we spent most of our time, are very dilapidated. Local idiots have kick them all to pieces, there’s not an unbroken pane of glass in the whole place. The buildings have been stripped of anything with any worth, some of the plasterboard walls have been kicked through and some have fire damage. The building furthest from the manor house has suffered a sever blaze and the roof, first floor and stairs are destroyed. The utter destruction of the buildings, coupled with a completely flat grey sky, made inspiration difficult, but there were still some photo opportunities to be had. There also appeared to be no security of any kind around these buildings.

The manor house, on the other hand, was very secure. All the windows are heavily boarded up and there are plenty of signs warning of the various security measures in place; we did spot passive IR sensors that other Urbexers have reported as fully functioning. The rear courtyard was fenced with barbed wire, covered in sticky grease, but there was a hole so we clambered through and had a look at the fire engine there. Finally, and the deciding factor for me not going inside, one of the side windows had lots of bees swarming in and out of it. I hate lots of bees.