That's cool Selig, and maybe my response was a tad harsh. I think that a couple of people at work know I visit this site, so if you are still interested then maybe drop me an email privately (rich_edwards79@yahoo.co.uk) though if you've seen my posts on the BBC boards you'll probably know about most of the places I do!

BritChick... I nearly saw inside the Merrion cinema on a guided tour of the old mall recently but had to cancel at the last minute. From the pictures I've seen it looks very much like a 1960s lecture hall. It's intriguing not for it's architectural interest but mainly because it's hidden in a busy shopping centre, covered with an anonymous frontage and very few people seem to know it's still there, looking like the day they closed it (lairy yellow / brown carpets and all!) I may have some photos somewhere if anyone is interested...

Now I'M jealous that you have old asylums in the South-East, quite a few of them too if the other UE sites I've come across are to be believed... not much like that here other than the place mentioned above...

That thing would startle the bejeezus out of me if I came across it in a pitch-black, burned-out building. Which is probably one of the reasons I don't do too much urban exploring - I'm a fraidy cat lol...

Twug, at the time the UK was in the depths of recession, and cheap package holidays to hi-rise hotels in Spain and Greece were also seen as a better option than UK chalet parks like this, which were associated with being quite dated, and were frequently more expensive than their Continental counterparts without the guaranteed hot weather (our maritime climate is variable, even in summer, to say the least).

Plus, the damage was eventually costed at £2 million, which added to the lost takings from the 1991 season (the park was fully catered and the restaurant, along with the site shop, lounges, bars, kids' club and most of the other indoor facilities) were destroyed or damaged enough to put them out of commission, and hence prevent bookings being honoured) quickly made the place a financial burden.

i think plans are afoot to flatten it once the asbestos has been removed from the 1960s buildings, and turn it into another dull housing estate :(

Dean, that figures, and I guess it's a good thing for preservationists, because a ship of that size would burn very spectacularly if some teenage arsonist managed to gain entry, or sink very expensively if someone opened the seacocks 'for a laugh'.

It's so sad to see so many of these old liners in such bad shape. They were after all the height of luxury and technology when new and are still probably the biggest moving objects ever built by humans. As with so much, we should show them more respect.

Only the Queen Mary's story seems to have had a happy ending, as the Norway (formerly the France, herself the replacement for the famed Normandie) has just been decommissioned as uneconomic.

It's amazing how people fuss over the Titanic, which lies in bits at the bottom of the North Altlantic, and talk every so often of raising her, when these ships are still living and could have a future if anyone cared enough.

Even if nothing else can be found to do with these liners than turn them into floating hotels or universities, surely that's a better fate than ending up as Coke cans or Toyotas...

Me too Ed, they're one of the most compelling things about this site, up there with the shots themselves. But Lynne, surely this must freak even you out a little bit? Knowing what we do about what went on at Pennhurst?! I don't think most people here are saying that all institutions are, or even were, hideous places full of terror and abuse, or even that all of Pennhurst was like that, but the shots of this room are very unnerving.

I don't pity the 'children' that lived here for their disabilities, as I said I know a couple of people who are developmentally 'challenged' in some way or another and I certainly don't feel sorry for them, nor would they want people to do so. But I do pity the Pennhurst clients for the way many of them were treated, whether that took the form of deliberate abuse by a tiny minority of the staff or the more widespread neglect that saw residents tied to their beds, attacked by other patients or simply so regressed that they were unable to walk or talk because they'd never been given the opportunity to do so.

Of course even with testimonies from ex-patients, and footage of the place in use, Pennhurst was so massive and affected so many people over nearly eight decades that we'll probably never know the full story behind it. These murals could well have been painted by some of the residents themselves. And it's odd to think how if that were confirmed to be the case, I think most would agree that this room would lose many of its unpleasant connotations...

Well Lynne, you certainly made me think and reconsider some of my views... so the wall isn't the only thing to benefit from your 'rants' :-)

Great set... thank you for sharing. Definitely looking forward to seeing the products of your trip.

They look like stone or concrete guards, to protect the corners of the walls on the narrow entrance from trolleys, vehicles... whatever. I used to work in a postal sorting office and all the doorways had these, partly to round off the corners so that your big trolley of mail or whatever wouldn't get caught on it. They're quite common in factories and hospitals too in my experience.

I love the composition of this one.

It looks like it may have been used in a play... did this prison have a theatre or anything?

That is some very freaky perspective...

Contrast that carpet with the ones in the Pines lol

ewwww...

I can visualise the warden walking down the endless rows of cells, jangling his keys and banking on the bars with his nightstick. "Lights out!"

... of course I speak from having seen too many prison films, not personal experience ;-)

That is an amazing shot.

Odd design. Usually prison blocks seem to have two 'walls' of cells facing one another across an atrium, with translucent roof. This one seems to be better in that it possibly gave the inmates a view through those full-length windows, though possibly the cells were built back-to-back and therefore didn't have their own windows onto the outside...

Okay, I googled this and all I could find were half-a-dozen eBay listings... it looks as though this was an electric learning aid from the 1970s that quizzed you on maths questions, and would have originally had a red LED display on the front, like a vintage pocket calculator. Before someone lobbed it at a wall that is. One of those auctions stood at about $50!

Damn that is cool! Reminds me of one of those old eight-track machines that fetch a small fortune now in retro shops. Too bad it's ruined, would probably be worth a bit now...

"Cybernetic Systems" - somehow the hi-tech name doesn't fit with this relic of the analog era - but then this may have been the height of technology when it was new!?!

There doesn't seem to be much of the water damage that wrecks so many old buildings. I wonder if the roofs are still maintained?

In the UK half of it seems to end up on eBay...

Now this one makes me think of cold water...

The penthouse suite lol...

That's so freaky. I'm just amazed it wasn't on a wall in Pennhurst.

And following on from the above comment, by the modern miracle known as the World Wide Web I just found a website devoted to the place! Although it's in even worse shape now than when I last saw it, even the Dolphin Holiday Village will live on in cyberspace... the sun will always shine on a blue ocean and chalets freshly painted for the new season, the lawns will forever be as neatly mowed as they were when I was seven years old...

http://www.pontinsdolphin.4t.com/

Come back in a few weeks and it'll just be a little pile of bones...

It just looks like a regular hospital bed that's been raised fully at both ends. I doubt if both the leg and head supports would have been extended at the same time when it was occupied, and the lack of a mattress makes it look pretty weird too.

You can see the handles that are connected to a long pole with a thread on the end... before the days of hydraulics and power assistance I suspect (poor nurses!)

The metalwork nearest the camera does look scarily like stirrups... but I think they're just mounts for the wooden baseboard which has fallen off.

Sorry to be a kill-joy lol!