Tales of the Urban Explorer: St Margaret of Antioch

’St Margaret of Antioch' was an intimidating, sinister looking building. That disapproving frown was telling me, '...you are not going to get inside me, not a chance...'.

It spoke and looked down upon us like something from a Dickensian society; something from a different time period.

Dickens died in 1870, his works are mostly from a time before Victorian dominance began in the mid-1800s, and the school was built in 1887, so I am a little wayward with my assessment.

However the Victorian times were bleak, and kids, if even allowed to go to school were subject to harsh treatment and frequent beatings. There had to be some ghosts inside somewhere.

’St Margaret of Antioch’ closed its doors in 2010 and has been empty since then.

“Did you try the gate?”, I motioned to @anidiotexplores who like me, had walked around the entire school looking for weak spots.

Amazingly, the gate swung open and we quickly entered closing it. Sometimes it can be as simple as looking at the obvious. 1-0 to us...

Things got even better as one of the fire doors was open and we were in. I am quite sure this is no longer the case, as conditions change very frequently.

While it was quite bare, there was a distinct lack of vandalism at least so far.

If you were to ignore the broken glass and add some little brats this corridor could look quite normal. With it being Liverpool, the broken glass may have been a permanent fixture during its days of being open. I have to have a little dig.

What the red 'thing' is I am not sure. I would guess at a fridge/freezer combination, except it seems to dispense coffee... and that colour?

There were some very useable pieces of furniture left behind at ’St Margaret of Antioch’. I noticed some scrawling on the far wall and wondered what was to come.

I can only guess the staff must have been very mixed race, you don't want them dumping on the floor due to the fact they can't read English now, do you?

They left in a hurry leaving David Beckham's Autobiography as well as a bunch of other items. It’s not a bad read actually.

The tatty-looking 'Education Committee' books were sadly void of any writing.

…as were these pupil books in a lot better condition.

That pile of magazines was devoid of porn; unless it’s a secret headmaster stash you can’t expect it.

As can be seen from the exterior of ’St Margaret of Antioch’, there were only two floors to the main section of the building.

This little guy had not fared too well and probably starved to death. Old magazines don't offer much in the way of avian nutrition.

I do like my broken glass shots, and occasionally manage a decent one.

This one is probably the better of the two, Ooooo... the drama!

Like many larger explores, ’St Margaret of Antioch’ was made up of many corridors and us peeking in each to see if there was anything of interest. I would say that most of the time that’s a negative.

Talk about leaving everything behind, this room was the most populated when it came to 'ancient relics of the twenty-tens'.

It was a combination of unused or partially used stationary and a pile of kid’s games.

Do it yourself signs, maybe the school was not getting a lot of funding?

Growing tired of the endless corridors we exited and homed in on the other out-buildings.

Access doesn’t look difficult but look closer and you will notice that most windows are edged with a decent amount of glass. @anidiotexplores has tungsten fingers but I don’t and had to choose my entrance more carefully.

The window in the door was the easiest route and miraculously I didn’t end up bleeding from several body parts.

If the dickheads had mostly spared the larger building, they had made up for it in there. The pianos were in a sorry state, and I couldn't even get a single note out of either.

As for this one, well…. Forget it.

It’s a poor area to walk barefoot, shoes are highly recommended.

Judging by the number of pianos, organs, and keyboards knocking around, I would suggest that 'St Margaret of Antioch’ focused on the art of music.

The distant chair provides a quick getaway through a window that is not smashed enough to vacate from. Given the amount of internal glass we spotted, the previous visitors didn't do enough 'smashing' to make things easy.

Empty ring binders are a common sight in explores that are not pure derps.

I want to imagine that is fresh golden honey ripe from a local beehive splattered above the sink and not ‘something else’ a little less desirable and markedly more pungent. I kept my distance.

Having an affinity for any instrument that is keyboard related, this was a sad state of affairs to my eyes.

I seem to remember exiting via this lower window. You do need to crawl and gloves are mandatory. Just look at what you are expected to crawl on.

We walked around the rear external areas taking a few snaps. Not those kinds of 'rear externals', yeah…, I know what you are thinking.

’St Margaret of Antioch’ was typically overgrown with weeds growing in abundance out of every small nook and cranny.

It was past 5 pm and time to head back, although we did try another school leaving sharpish after setting an alarm off. It's all one big adventure, cut into small slices.

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