In today’s Urbandoned video, we head inside a disused school in Manchester that failed
to last a decade open before closing, due to consecutively bad Ofsted reports.
The site consists of a few detached buildings, each with functioning power and water as well
as various items left behind.
Everything is still intact and ready for refurbishment.
Join us as we explore the facility to see what’s left.
In our last video we asked the question as to whether graffiti can be artwork in an abandoned
building or mindless vandalism?
We had some great responses but have included this one from Apollodora who agrees with us
that art in any way is subjective, but some forms of scribbled graffiti is a waste, especially
on a historic, old building ruining its features, such as the hospital showcased in that video.
This week we are asking ‘Should it be an offence for an explorer to switch on the electricity
in an abandoned building?’ because usually someone is paying for the bills.
Let us know what you think to possibly feature in our next video.
Minimal vegetation overgrowth and a lack of wooden boards projects that this abandoned
building should have a clean, recently derelict interior.
We also spotted modern CCTV and a dog van situated in the central courtyard of the school,
which would help our beliefs.
Having not seen this property visited before us, we didn’t have any idea what to expect.
However, in no time, we had escaped the pouring rain and found our way into the largest section
of the complex, interested to see what lay inside.
With the top floors appearing empty, we worked our way downstairs.
We soon found that the power worked in nearly every room, being automatic with sensors in
some spaces.
Having discovered this place ourselves, we visited on two separate occasions, so you
might see differences in the footage.
Most of this section of building contained classrooms for all the subjects the school
taught to it’s students, ageing from 11-16 at a capacity of over 400.
As we progress, we leave this region moving into the recreational areas like the sports
hall and canteen.
Next, we made our way into a region of the structure boasting science classes, with various
labs.
Clean and tidy, the laboratories are a
perfect example of the waste of a valuable learning space, as it appeared that this room
was just a lab no longer used, as opposed to a derelict site fallen into disrepair.
Upstairs, we found an identically furnished room but with a few slight changes that made
it just as interesting as the first lab.
Opening in 2013, the Manchester based school hoped to hold almost 500 students, but despite
this, it’s first year in use had under 300 attend.
After the poor start, it seemed that life for the school continued to miss the mark.
Ofsted reports described it as inadequate, the worst rating a board can give and said
the standard of education wasn’t acceptable for it’s children.
It even read that students felt unsafe because of fighting.
The building closed in 2017 expectedly, with it’s land being prime for developers, as
well as rumours that the local residents were unhappy the prized space had acquired a school
and not something better.
Unlike other abandoned structures nearby to the school, this one had remained in ideal
condition.
This is probably because the building is set to be renovated, hence the new security measures
that might appear over the top for such a small building.
On our second visit when this video was mostly filmed, you see the dog van that made entering
trickier as well as the aftermath of the vandalism that occurred to cause the security's inclusion.
The main hall was quite appealing although it had no architectural significance.
A lot of furniture and items had been stored inside when the school had closed, but you
would struggle to tell on our second visit, when the vandalism had taken place.
The destruction was extremely noticeable, with
the neatly stacked chairs thrown around and glassware from the science area smashed all
over the ground.
It was amazing to us how much can happen in just a couple weeks time.
Finally, we moved across to a separate building featuring the sports hall.
On our first visit, we did see another segment of the facility, but this was blocked off
by the dog van now.
Thankfully, there wasn’t much of interest inside anyway.
Even though the classroom had been utilised as a locker storage area, there was a good
amount of artwork remaining, covering the walls and hanging from the ceiling.
With the buzzing of electrics above us, the ambience in the empty gymnasium was very atmospheric.
It sits in an immaculate way unfitting that no one uses it anymore.
There was more than enough time to use the many footballs and even badminton sets to
play about when it was too rainy to do so outside.
It felt right to conclude our visit in a room that signifies the waste of function the premises
is experiencing at the moment.
It’s clean interior deserves use and hopefully will in the future, whether as a school or
something else.
Turning off each light we had switched on, we left the property in darkness again as
it waits for the imminent transformation.
We hope you enjoyed seeing us explore the school.
If you did, feel free to like the video and subscribe to never miss a future upload.
Here are some of our photographs from the explore.
If you like the look of them, check out our Instagram page in the description where we
post images of our explores months before they are seen on YouTube.
Thanks for watching!
We are beginning to start properly exploring again with lockdown lifted and look forward
to sharing some of our recent finds.
See you next time!