In the mid 1700s, the construction finished of what was the biggest brick building in
Europe at the time, known as the Royal Hospital Haslar.
Included in the colossal grounds of the facility was an asylum built purposefully for sailors
with physchiatric disorders.
The historic structure played a massively important role in medical science through
its time.
Here, the cure for scurvy was discovered and the country’s first blood bank was built.
Haslar has been closed since 2009, with a tight security unit on the property, meaning
we had to access the hospital in the night and wait for the earliest light to explore
it.
As the first specks of light entered the building, we began taking a look around the gigantic
hospital, which cost over £100,000 to create.
Surrounded by huge prison like walls and fences, it was no easy feet getting inside the structure,
but we just about managed it, the utter darkness we were in not helping at all.
On the fence lines are night vision cameras too, which can be controlled and turned by
the security.
Already we found a good amount of bits and bobs to look at, which was surprising as the
hospital is actually part demolished.
The huge courtyard bit we looked at earlier originally was the modern ANE section, but
that has been demolished in recent years.
The structure we are in is set to become flats sooner than later, but for now it is still
in a good hospital state for us to explore.
These operating lights are the only ones left in the facility nowadays, although there must
have been plenty rooms like this in the past.
As you heard earlier in the video, the hospital is right next to the south coast, on a little
bit of land coming off of England.
In the 1700s, the only way to access the building was by boat and that is what patients were
transported on, until a bridge was built in 1795, providing a direct link.
Next we entered some private wards, which all had old televisions in them, emphasising
the monetary waste when the hospital closed.
On the doors to these rooms we could still find the names of the patients that were last
treated inside.
The morning sun was beginning to rise, forming beautiful natural light coming into Haslar,
which would complete our next discovery in the complex.
Surprisingly, every single part of the medical equipment was left behind at this hospital,
like these old MRI scanners, that weren’t moved because they were outdated.
When the site first closed and for numerous years of abandonment, there were more than
20 scanners sat gathering dust, but due to the ongoing demolition process, most have
been taken out.
Only 3 remain today but they were still great to see, a little insight into past treatment.
A laboratory still had a lot of stuff in too, some flasks with deteriorating chemicals inside
them.
Although this equipment is very cool to see, it is nowhere near close to the state of the
hospital in it’s prime abandoned period.
Many consider Haslar to be the best of the best for UK hospitals, because everything
was left in the facility upon closure.
Beds, x-ray machines, documents, the lot.
The lack of vandalism because of the great security team, contrasting with the time capsule
look of the hospital made it very popular with urban explorers, and you can see why.
Thank you to Andy or Behind Closed Doors for allowing us to showcase his photos from his
explore of the site in 2014.
Be sure to check out his website in the description.
Anyway, we were continuing our wander through the seemingly expanding site, as there was
still much more we wanted to see.
There were two iconic features of this hospital we desperately wanted to see before we left,
because it is unlikely that any other English buildings of this nature will have them.
Soon enough, we found the first of two - the incredible oval staircase.
The unusual design is very photogenic, going all the way up the five floors of the main
building we were in.
Quickly after, one the bottom floor we found the second impressive feature.
These towering arches is known as the arcade in Haslar, and it has a very interesting history.
The tracks on the floor is where wounded soldiers would have been wheeled in during the Napoleon
and world wars.
When they were brought in, a doctor would inspect the damage and decide whether they
would be sent up the stairs and into the hospital to be worked on, but only if the doctor believed
there injuries were sustainable.
Otherwise, they would be sent back the other way to Haslar’s chapel, where they would
be prayed for, and probably die.
It was crazy to think that these arched spaces saw so much agony from the brave soldiers
in the war, and it also shows the difference between hospitals then that were designed
with care, compared to the modern day hospital which is designed to function.
On this thought we left the huge complex, and headed to the next location of our southern
trip.
The £150 million scheme involving housing, commercial spaces, a hotel and a retirement
home has already commenced, and it won’t be long before Haslar isn’t known as a hospital
ever again.
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