OlyVision #1, September 2017 | Page 43

An old fort house, HDR
Some of my favourite exploratory visits have been during the
European trips.
The largest building I have been (as in the number of rooms
etc.) was a prison in northern France. It was a high security
prison near a large town that was left empty after the prison-
ers were moved to a new built prison some years ago. I was
told that during the war the prison was under Nazi control
and housed their prisoners too.
On our visits there were several thousand Gypsys camped
up in the car park and what would have been the front grass
area. From our research we knew that they were there, there
were no reports of any real problems with them and it was
just a case of ‘ignore and avoid them and they’ll ignore and
avoid you’.
© Kevin Chaplin
We got in and spent the next two or so hours going through
as much as we could before the light dimmed. The place
had been heavily vandalised in several spots, in one cell a fire
or something had burnt a huge hole in the solid reinforced
concrete floor and then another hole in the cell below. Nev-
ertheless, there were still some nice parts deep inside the
complex.
My favourite UK location was a private school that appar-
ently ran out of money, closed and the administrators were
called in and the most valuable stuff was sold. The build-
ing itself is stunning though, with nice big staircases, lovely
woodwork, great ceilings and enough natural light.
I stayed in there for five hours and only left when the light
faded away.