A Map of Abandoned Places

Aug 19, 2017

A record of all the derelict places I claim to have visited during my short life as an urban explorer.

I don’t remember how it started, but since my teenage years I’ve always liked to sneak into disused buildings, especially the industrial kind. Wherever I go, I try to search for traces of past activity. Some places, like the Parisian Basin, are real gold mines: industries like limestone extraction had their heyday hundreds of years ago, and their decline has left many remnants that are a joy to explore.

Since I came to the UK and especially East Anglia, I’ve been somewhat less active in that respect. Not so much due to a lack of time, but rather because I couldn’t find much to explore around Cambridge. My guess is that the pace of (re)development there simply doesn’t allow for much exploration: land is scarce and expensive, and disused buildings get demolished or repurposed pretty fast.

So, that gave me some time to build this little compendium of the places that I did visit. There are also some spots that I know the location of, but haven’t yet had time to explore, they’re marked in yellow/orange on the map.