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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Travel
Milo Boyd

'I explore abandoned places - I've climbed rollercoasters and heard creepy sounds'

An explorer climbed the abandoned tracks of a rollercoaster he rode in his youth as part of a tour of Britain's disused tourist attractions.

For the past 20 years Simon Sugden has been travelling across the country breaking into abandoned places and photographing what's inside.

The 55-year-old has had a number of particularly spooky scrapes along the way, and not simply at the hands of suspicious security guards - who are often happy to show him around the site after finding out Simon isn't interested in vandalism.

During one visit he made to the once proud, now-gutted-by-fire Drummonds Mill in Bradford Simon encountered what may have been a different kind of security system.

He was coy about where a plane graveyard was located (Simon Sugden)

"We were in the basement and we heard the footsteps of these really loud work boots," Simon told The Mirror.

"I rang the owner who said there was no one else in the building, so me and my friend burst through the doors upstairs, but there was nothing.

"We were feeling a bit weird and when we went back downstairs, we heard it again, but with a trolley sound as well. I knew what it was as I'd moved the same trolley before.

"It was like a 747 coming overhead with the wooden floor. But when we went up the trolley hadn't moved and there was no one there.

Simon was given permission to shoot this abandoned sports centre in Bradford, West Yorkshire (Simon Sugden)

"We decided to leave a phone recording and went to look at the old canteen. When we played it back we heard footsteps again and then the sound of a loom powering up."

Simon is wary of claiming he encountered a ghost, wondering instead whether the buildings "might trap energy."

On another occasion he was in the bedroom of an abandoned farmhouse in Lincolnshire when his fully charged battery suddenly died and his camera seized up.

Simon and his friend were spooked out by the noises they heard in the mill (Simon Sugden)

When he put another battery in, it too was suddenly drained of energy.

Generally Simon, who is training to become health and social care worker alongside his adventuring, spends his time having intriguing experiences very much in the physical realm.

"Many, many years ago, a group of explorers went down to Wales and we had been camping for a few days," he recalled.

"I was bursting to go to the toilet, not just a number one. I came across what I thought was an abandoned train master's house next to this small single track railway.

The wrecked remains of two boats in Fleetwood, a coastal town in Lancashire (Simon Sugden)

"I looked in the window and all the curtains were tatty, so I thought 'I can do my business in there'. The backdoor was open and so was the toilet.

"When I was done I went in the living room and there was a guy fast asleep. He didn't wake up so I just left him."

More recently and in an episode with a little more faded glamour, Simon visited the Camelot theme park in Chorley, Lancashire ten years after it closed.

In the centre of the Medieval themed resort sits the now disused Knightmare coaster, which rises to 87 feet and reached the highest g-force of any ride in the UK at the time of its maiden ride.

Simon visited this waterless pool in an empty spa in Merseyside (Simon Sugden)

"As a child I went there and so when I heard it were abandoned I decided to go," Simon said.

"I got there at silly o'clock in the morning and climbed up the roller coaster a bit. It was a bit rattly."

Those looking to visit some of the places Simon has sneaked into should know that doing so is illegal in a lot of circumstances, potentially dangerous and occasionally impossible as many - including Camelot - have since been destroyed.

One place that is also difficult to visit is a plane graveyard, which the Keighley, Yorkshire man wants to keep a secret to protect the work of the elderly man who maintains it.

Simon even ventured into an abandoned church in Lancashire, where the pages of bibles were left to curl (Simon Sugden)

"I don't want to say where the plane graveyard is, but it's on the way to Birmingham," he explained. "It is the collection of a Spitfire pilot who is in his 80s. There is a working farmyard in the back.

"I pulled up and asked to take pictures. The pilot has been trying to keep these planes maintained. I think it got difficult over the years."

Simon has rules he advises others to follow when it comes to entering disused buildings.

"If someone is living in there I won't go in and I never force entry," he said. "I go in through an open door or window, and I never move anything or take anything."

Simon's new book Abandoned Britain can be found here.

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