Sick Britain

Unfortunately we have become aware that the Sick Britain ‘Contact Us’ page has been broken for some time, we’re not entirely sure what went wrong but many of your messages have come through to the email without contact information (i.e. they look like emails from us – to us, your email address has been lost) – it is also possible that some messages did not make it to our email box at all.  We are sorry for any inconvenience cause and would not like our readers to think that they are being ignored, from now on please contact us directly on sickbritain@googlemail.com or by commenting on a post.

Popularity: 9% [?]

In case you weren’t aware we’ve got a thriving Flickr Group where fellow explorers post their wares, we’re over 3,500 items now so I thought I’d make a few quick picks of the Creative Commons submissions from the group.  If you’ve not heard of Creative Commons it’s a way of licensing your work to allow certain usage, in my case my photos are all available for non-commercial use as long as you credit me.

So, onto the picks – I’ve selected one photo each from five Sick Britain members…

1. Howzey….

2. Compound Eye…

3. Urban Spaceman…

4. AltoExyl…

5. Alistair Hobbs…

Popularity: 12% [?]

Following up on my Top 10 Abandoned Asylums post I decided to start looking at other ‘genres’ of urban exploration, in this week’s post it’s going to be industrial sites.  When I started researching the list I had a few obvious sites in mind but for the rest it was really tough to build a good solid list, industrial urbex seems to be much more diverse and localised than asylums.  It seems that explorers will travel great distances to visit an abandoned asylum but there are seem to be enough derelict warehouses, mills, factories, etc. on a local basis so people tend to visit places close to their homes.

As before, I have selected a top ten list based on the number of Flickr photos I found for each site in a single search, doubtlessly I will have missed important sites and got the ranking wrong but please feel free to point them out by leaving a comment. All of the photos used below were taken by other photographers and are used under a Creative Commons license (click through to Flickr for attribution), if you think you’ve got a better photo and it’s not CC – get your licensing sorted!

Annesley, Clipstone, Pleasley

Popularity: 42% [?]

All over the UK dotted throughout countryside and city alike lie abandoned asylums, relics of a bygone era of mental health where the aim was to isolate patients in a secure facility rather than integrating them with the community. Here I have selected a top ten list based on the number of Flickr photos I found for each asylum in a single search, doubtlessly I will have missed important sites and got the ranking wrong but please feel free to point them out by leaving a comment. All of the photos used below were taken by other photographers and are used under a Creative Commons license (click through to Flickr for attribution), if you think you’ve got a better photo and it’s not CC – get your licensing sorted!

1. Hellingly

2. Cane Hill

3. West Park

4. Whittingham

5. Severalls

6. Denbigh

7. Deva

8. St Mary’s

9. Talgarth

10. St John’s

Popularity: 100% [?]

After a run of mainly forum or photography sites I’ve found something a little different, a blog. Talk|URBEX is just starting out but aims to “share amazing locations, hints, tips and provide articles on camera equipment, post processing workflow and help on getting that perfect angle to provide the best record of the urbex site”, given that it’s aims are very allied to ours here at Sick Britain I intend to watch this one with interest!

www.talkurbex.com

Popularity: 5% [?]