After exploring Harperbury, we met up with more great explorers from the country, and exchanged all sorts of stories from our past experiences in America and the past week in England. After dinner, we got to talking about a very old glass ballroom that sat underneath a lake... something very different and interesting to us visitors!
We were directed to the property and given some direction on where to go; luckily the weather cleared up and the moon gave us a good amount of light once our eyes adjusted. The terrain was very overgrown, and after climbing a wall and a few obstacles we were faced with a large lake and some kind of boathouse... the owner of the property is very well known celebrity and very wealthy, so we kept our eyes and ears open for alarms and guard dogs. We stayed close to shore and crept up the side of the water on the manicured lawn, and then I saw a beautiful statue in the center of the lake in front of us; it looked like an angelic figure dancing on the water in the blue moonlight, it was absolutely incredible. I wondered if the ballroom was right underneath her, and I shortly found the answer to be yes as we came upon a stone staircase spiraling down underground. A heavy, Gothic wood door was ajar at the top, so we all grabbed our flashlights and filed into the narrow staircase. A long tunnel stretched ahead of us, arched but pointed at the top, and the only noise was of dripping water and the booming echoes of our footsteps. We reached the end of the tunnel and I saw the ballroom; I would estimate it was a 12 foot tall dome, with steel supporting thick panes of glass, beyond which was a layer of algae and lake water. It was simple, yet elegant, beautiful and mysterious.
Then we saw the little red light. We backed up quickly and said "Run!" Before we could push the rest of our party back further the alarm started screaming with a very high pitch noise; so we sprinted at full speed back through the tunnel, up the staircase and out along the lake until we were safely back in the woods. The noise of the alarm died quickly once we got out, and no one probably heard it, but we didn't want to risk anything; and who knows what other security measures were around on such a grand estate. Oh well, failed mission #4 in England!
We slept a bit and headed out for our last trip in England... and abandoned morgue next to a graveyard. With the date being 06-06-06, we thought it was quite fitting!
Despite the lack of sleep, expensive prices, and failed explorations (Crossley Hospital East but I got one photo before the dogs came, Cane Hill, West Park, and The Ballroom), I really had a blast in England! I hope you enjoy the last photos from this trip.