by Portia Nicholson

Created on: March 15, 2007   Last Updated: November 30, 2011

Urban exploration

"Urban exploration is for people who have never grown up", explains Sam* casually over a cup of coffee. Except breaking and entering into condemned buildings is hardly Peter Pan innocence I silently muse, as Sam explains to me what exactly is involved in the underground hobby that is Urban Exploration.
Urban exploration largely involves breaking into abandoned structures. The sites vary widely from old factories, closed schools, underground caves, drains and closed hospitals. The activity due to its illegal nature, has an underground following that whilst it is hard to measure the size of, is well documented over the Internet. Several websites are dedicated to providing details of sites around the UK to explore and post pictures of their urban adventures on their websites.

So what is the appeal is breaking into old buildings anyway? Urban explorers face many hazards, including broken glass, parts of the structure collapsing, possible chemicals present on the site, guard dogs and of course getting caught. The website Sub Urban offers an explanation to their fascination with entering urban sites across the country "Our visits are fuelled by our interest in photography, film making, architecture, climbing, industrial & Victorian history, urban decay, plain old childlike curiosity and a desire to know why, where and how?"

I decided to try and understand what the attraction of running around disused buildings was and let Sam talk me into to going along to a very large disused building in Central Bristol. Firstly Sam explained to me, I would need to get kitted out, so dressed in an all black Burglar Bill type costume with my trusty Spiderman gloves (in case I had to scale any walls), I hesitantly met Sam outside of our Urban site. After Sam checking I had my torch and water on me, I somehow managed to climb over a nine foot gate in the dark and run into the bushes on the other side. Sam explained to me that whilst not getting caught was our priority, I probably didn't need to be crawling on my hands and knees and darting between bushes as If I was starring in Goldeneye.

I was amazed at the lack of security at our site as we walked right on in to the building. There were no giant guard dogs running around, no security cameras and only one security hut that seemed to be unoccupied. As I walked around the giant structure it was like I had stepped back in time as I passed rusted machinery and abandoned offices. Sam explained to me that this was a

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