Mortuary

Today I'm looking at this mortuary!

Funnily enough, this will only be the third mortuary slab I've ever had a lie down on, and let me tell you, they are surprisingly comfortable. The cold porcelain can be quite refreshing on a warm day. These are the perks of mortuary slabs that their traditional clients don't get to enjoy. But as the saying goes- there are two types of urbexer: The ones who find a mortuary slab and immediately have had their photo taken lying on it, and liars! 

I guess I should be trying to add a more sombre mood to a write-up on a mortuary, and regale you with tales of gloomy vibes and a heavy atmosphere. But the truth is there wasn't one. Mortuary's are actually awesome! If I could go back in time to 2010 and tell young innocent me in his first year of urbexing that someday he'd be photographing a hospital morgue, it wouldn't just be the dead getting stiff! I think at that point all I'd done was rooftopping and the occasional mooch around the abandoned gym above Bodycare that is now apartments. I never saw myself doing this.

For me the appeal is being able to nip "behind the scenes" and see something that I wouldn't ordinarily ever get to see. I mean if I didn't do urbex, the only way I'd ever be in one of these is if I was actually dead. And where's the fun in that? When I say I'm dying to see this place, I mean figuratively.

 

The sink is looking a bit grim. 

Excitement aside, I think working in a mortuary would be quite depressing. And I say this as someone who, at work, has prepared the deceased for their final trip. Due to the nature of my work I've only ever worked with people who have died in old age or have had a cardiac arrest. But a mortuary will see everything, from horrific accidents to small children, and I don't think I could handle the latter.

This mortuary was built in 1910 for the nearby tuberculosis sanatorium, initially for children but later expanded to include adults. I've covered sanatoriums in my blogs before. While it may seem outrageous in the modern era where we're all jabbed, back in the day tuberculosis had quite the body count. Between 1851 and 1910 four million people in the UK died from it. That's 185 people a day! With the general assumption that fresh air and rest were beneficial for treatment, sanatoriums were often in the countryside and were almost like hospitals mixed with a health spa. There was treatment but there was also bed rest out on the balcony on a sunny day, and recreational activities for those who were able. 

But depending on the severity, being bed-bound was mandatory. Some patients were allowed to leave the bed once a day for a shower but that was it. Some more severe cases would result in wooden blocks being placed under the foot of the bed to tilt it thirty degrees, which must be fun if you're perpetually bed bound. This was allegedly to compress the cavities in the lungs and help them heal.

But with tuberculosis being pretty damn deadly, many survivors would later draw similarities to the old evacuations of world war 2, where people would leave their families for the countryside without knowing if they'd ever see them again.

In this particular hospital, if it wasn't obvious, the ones who didn't survive were taken here.

The trolley is still here. Presumably this was used by mortuary staff to transport the dead from the fridge to the slab. Perhaps it was even used by the porters to bring the dead from the hospital. 

But what's this?

I think this might actually be embalming fluid, still here after all these years.

I have heard a few tales from people who either worked at the sanatorium or were patients there in the 1950s. They tell of how tuberculosis deaths were actually on a decline by this point, largely due to the medication provided. In fact the fatality rate was so low that one former patient here was able to look at a ward group photo and pick out the only one who had died. I have seen the group photo, but I'm not sure which one he is. I know in my last mortuary blog I was able to identify several former "clients" and tell their story. But that was a wartime overflow mortuary. This one is a hospital morgue. It's seen a much larger number of visitors. Every single person who has ever passed away in the hospital between 1910 and the 1990s has come through here.

The tuberculosis vaccine really brought about the end of sanatoriums and many across the world have been abandoned. This particular one got lucky and started branching out into other fields. In 1967 they got a hydrotherapy pool, operating theatres, a radiology department and an orthopaedic unit, and as such the sanatorium transitioned into a community hospital. This mortuary is believed to have closed down in the 1990s, and it totally makes sense. It's actually some distance away from the hospital, and they no doubt now has a new modern one inside the actual building, making this one somewhat redundant.

 

The fridges were a real treat to see, long deactivated but still containing the platforms that the deceased would have been stored on. I've actually never come across mortuary fridges before. At Denbigh Asylum I could see where they had been, but everything that made them identifiable had long been destroyed or snatched. Here the fridges are perfectly preserved. Naturally my entourage and I had to get our photos taken in it, with out feet peeking out. I won't be posting any pics of my trotters though. If you'll pay an onlyfans girl, you can bloody well pay me too!

 

But now onto the best part of any abandoned building, the toilets!

But hold up! We have a guard!

Look at this adorable bat, casually hanging from the toilets door handle. This is perhaps the most awkward place a bat could possibly choose to take a nap, but I can't stay mad at something so cute. 

Luckily I was able to gently ease the door open without upsetting it.

And here we are. It's still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs. 

Lastly, one door led through to a small chapel area.

 

This is what makes this mortuary somewhat different. Sanatoriums were self-contained communities. In that sense they are reminiscent of the old lunatic asylums of the Victorian era, except people were expected to get better and leave. Funeral directors wouldn't take tuberculosis victims, so the mortuary had to do funeral services here. The funeral officiant would enter through the mortuary, being on this side of the "altar" while the public would enter through that door at the back, and a small service would be held. 

This is the room that felt a bit sad. This is where people came to mourn their loved ones. It's impossible to be here and not put myself in their shoes a little bit.

But from an urbex perspective, it is nice to see so much left behind, all decaying naturally without any vandalism.

 

But that's all I've got for this place.

The mortuary did become super popular with the urbex herd, and it's understandable really. I'm not going to berate anyone for wanting to check this place out. But the increased footfall didn't go unnoticed, and I have heard that the powers-that-be have since sealed up the entrance. In regards to urbex history, it was just a small chapter. 

But I still love it. I'm glad I got to see it. I can now tick "climb into a morgue fridge with my friends" off my bucket list. It's right underneath "make some friends." 

So, the adventure continues. I've got a chapel to see next, and I absolutely love it. In the meantime, my social media platforms are the best way to stay updated with the blog, and I'm actually enjoying the alternative ones to the main trinity of shittery that we're stagnating in. So you can, follow me on the shite ones- Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and Instagrams hate-child with Twitter, Threads. Or you could jump ship and find me on something new, like Bluesky and Vero. I'm also on Reddit sometimes.

Thanks for reading!