Urban exploration and Abandoned Britain

[caramel_betty]

Hello all,

Given that a number of you are keen photographers and such, do any of you happen to know people doing urban exploration and Abandoned Britain type stuff? Lots of photography in random and interesting places - crumbling abandoned buildings, hidden nooks and crannies, sewers, tunnels, building sites... that sort of thing. Largely,

Comments

[samholloway]

I suggest you get your friend to get in touch with their local chapter of http://www.subbrit.org.uk/ who are usually able to organise such things.

[caramel_betty]

Ta. I imagine some of the members do things on the surface, too. :-)

[juggzy]

That's essentially what TubeWalking is about. Sort of. It's the sort of thing Andrew is doing habitually when he is not taking photographs of nature. Why doesn't your friend join flickr and some of the groups there? If you find an active one, you can make friends.

[caramel_betty]

That's essentially what TubeWalking is about.

Not really. TubeWalking, and similar, go to arbitrary places selected by virtue of being on the tube map, or some other device (A to Zs, trams, bus routes, whatever you fancy). This is pretty much the exact opposite - going to particular places that have specific things there.

Tube-walking is pretty much never going to have you walking through a fifteen year-old disused asylum, sewers, or nuclear bunkers.

Why doesn't your friend join flickr and some of the groups there?

He's on there, and hasn't found any that are helpful for him.

[juggzy]

Tube-walking is pretty much never going to have you walking through a fifteen year-old disused asylum, sewers, or nuclear bunkers.

Err ... doing such things is the tube navigator's mission so far as I recall, given that tube walking is about going between arbitrary places, via places of interest to the group leader.

You are, of course right in that visiting such places isn't intrinsic to tube walking in itself, rather, intrinsic to the interests of the person doing the navigating. Hoshuteki is intrinsically interested in such things.

[caramel_betty]

Tube-walking finds interesting places, yes. That's not what urban exploration is about. Yes, the places it finds may be interesting, but they're very often places that are off-limits. In the case of live buildings, it's about "infiltration" - getting into secured office buildings, or other places the public isn't supposed to be. Specifically, it isn't just exploring urban areas. The example muffledsqueak links to is pretty explicit about problems with trespass, burglary, and other things that are somewhat dubious, and the PikiWedia article mentions it too.

Tube-walking doesn't involve using fluorescent jackets, hard hats and clipboards to keep the public away from you!

[mhoulden]

In Leeds there's a website at http://www.secretleeds.com/. It's obviously not the south and it's a discussion forum funded by Leeds council but it might be a good starting point.