Trespassing Prohibited

by John Fortescue

The toilets had been smashed and all the wires pulled out of the walls, but there were still full bottles of spirits behind the bar, and the stage was set up with decorations and bunting.

This was the sight that greeted Mark, 27, and his squatter friends as they entered an abandoned Irish community centre in Wapping.

“It was pretty eerie,” he recalls.

Although they were looking around the building for a potential squat, there are others that hunt out such places in the name of urban exploration or 'urbex' for short.

Urban explorers

Only, these urban explorers do not only seek out derelict buildings, but half-built structures are also a favourite, particularly if they offer good views.

This extends not only to buildings, but sewers, tunnels, railways and even the tops of cranes.

Essentially they seek out the parts of the urban landscape that are off limits to the public and like all good explorers they document their discoveries, usually by taking photos and then posting them on one of the numerous web forums.

It’s not a concept that Mark is familiar with, but it is one in which he has unintentionally taken part.

“I’ve gone into places just to have a look, [as opposed to looking for a new squat].

"We went into this old government office block near the Tower [of London], which was too big to squat, so we just had a look around.

"There was a great view over the river.”

Going into places that are out of bounds is familiar to many a teenager and child, so how is urban exploration different?

Those who take part are the urban equivalent of mountaineers, potholers and cavers.

When looking through the world of 'urbex' web forums, the appeal of this activity is rarely mentioned.

Respect for cities

However, Ninjalicious, writing for Infiltration, a Canadian magazine and website devoted to urban exploration, explains that urban explorers "have more respect for and appreciation of our cities' hidden spaces than most of the people who think we’re naughty.

"We don’t harm the places we explore.

"We love the places we explore."

The legal issues surrounding 'urbex' are often the same as those for squatting; trespassing and criminal damage, usually to locks or hoardings.

It is because of this that most urbexers use pseudonym and it is also why they are reluctant to talk to outsiders about their activities.

This is another trait they share with many squatters, such as Mark. (Not his real name by the way.)

However, urban explorers are not always on the wrong side of the law.

In 2002, when a group of Chechen rebels held hundreds of people hostage in a Moscow theatre, a member of the Russian 'urbex' group Diggers of the Underground Planet led the Russian authorities into the building by a little-known underground route.

In terms of history, Infiltration dates the urban exploration roots back to 1793 when Philibert Aspairt went exploring the Paris catacombs.

He got lost and his body was not retrieved for 11 years.

Popular sites in London are the redundant factories and warehouses of the Docklands, and the half-built spires of the apartment blocks that are replacing them.

The Holy Grail

These are good, but the Holy Grail for urbexers are the tunnels that spawned the movement all those years ago in Paris.

Forums on the provinces and overseas are full of extraordinary pictures of these manmade burrows.

Mark has never been into any such tunnels himself, but heard stories from someone that squatted the ‘lighthouse’ building opposite King’s Cross Station.

“They found this staircase in the basement that lead down to a disused underground platform and there was tunnels linked to the existing tracks.”

If only he’d taken a camera with him, then he would have made an exemplary urban explorer.