28 Comments Posted by johnr

this was on ward 10, as has been said, it was the blind unit, so was there to prevent patients walking into the pillar

its a type of paint called portafleck, basically a base coat with some different colour specks in it that all come together in the one tin(the base coat is water based emulsion, and the specks are oil based, so the two dont mix, this is sprayed from a special spray gun, all in one go, base and colour specks and then when dry is glazed over with a seal. its a quick and cheap option. the paint is cheap to buy and as its sprayed on, isnt as labout intensive to apply, making it popular for covering large wall areas. in fact it tales longer to mask off windows and doors than it does to paint the walls. very popular in hospitals schools and public buildings.

the mortuary attendant at whittingham hospital, when i was there, used to keep the milk for his tea on a small shelf inside the body fridge, he often joked that they were the only people he could absolutely trust not to drink it when he was out!!!!!

this ballroom bears a remarkable resemblance to the one in whittingham hospital in england, very very similar design despite being a continent apart!!!

ships hulls nearto and below the waterline tend to be treated with different paints to those above the waterline. below water they get treated with antifowling paint, this has a chemical in it that prevents growths of weed algae and limpets etc, this paint tends to be more hard wearing that ordinary rustproofing paint used above the waterline. most hulls tend to get treated about 2metres or sometimes more above the waterline.

ive just realised where this is, this is taken on ward 3, and the entrance is to the langdale unit, the lancashire interim secure unit, where dangerous mentally ill patients were sectioned to for their own and the publics protection. hence the removal of the glass and any way of seeing in. in all my time there, i never once saw these doors open.

cameron house wasnt destroyed by fire. the health authority realised that the slated had some valus, so they stripped the roof of and sold the lot!!!

willy banjo is a shop in preston that sells bongs and other erm, herbal smoking paraphenalia

i think the effect is the light outside, and the dark inside, coupled with the damage to the doors, have you noticed, one has been damaged from inisde the room and one from outside.

as a plumber there in the 1980's i replaced most of the lead on this roof, happy days!!!

this is definately ward 12 taken from ward 11. the low roof just below the treeline is the laundry

of course theres a more mundane explanation for the boarding up of windows.in the early pic the patients would be locked in cells or very very heavily sedated, and there would be a high ratio of staff to patients, however, as sedatives developed, patients were more free to wander the hospital at will, and , well, its still a mental hospital, and glass isnt exactly a friendly material. also its not very private if the other side is not something that should be public, like a bathroom entrance or toilet for example.

and yes, that is the same shot!!

many many moons ago these would have been the ubiquitous padded cell. obviously the doors arent original. drug advancements eant that the padded cell was out of use many many decades ago, these small rooms were all offices and staff rooms or store rooms by the 1970's the x's might have amore recent explanation. after wjhittingham shut., lancashire police used the empty buildings to train its dog teams in search techniques, so the x's might have indicated that the rooms had been searched in some exercise.

this is one of the only open corridors at whittingham, directly opposite the open side of the corridor is the dballroom, behind the wall to the right is the supervisors private allotment garden(see last picture)

and, yes, thats a tiled floor.