Cybi's space

After a wonderful day out with my boys on sunday, we stopped on a quiet suburban street to eat some delicious mint choc chip icecream. All was peaceful and calm, sunday afternoon dog walkers strolling along the canal past us.
My husband, ever curious (and greedy, as he finished his icecream in record time) decided to see where the road would take us.
A short drive took us past average 1960's semi's, with their pretty hedges and gardens manicured to perfection.
As we breached the top of the road we came to a dead end. In front of us lay an imposing gateway flanked at both sides by towering yorks stone pillars. As we looked ahead, trying to determin where we were, the words chiseled into the stone work came into focus .... ISOLATION HOSPITAL ... the hairs on the back of my neck were on end, an icey chill zipped through me. This was the last thing we had expected to find at the end of the peaceful Yorkshire residential road.
The Victorian gates were impassable, there was no handles or locks on the metal work. Behind them was a thick dark area of woodland, no driveway or path was visable through and beyond the gates. A rapid look showed a high wall streching in both directions away from the 'entrance'.
What had we found ?
A secret hospital ?
An abandoned Victorian Instituion?
So many things were running through my mind.



I couldn't just drive away without finding out what was behind those creepy gates. I set off around the walls to look for a way in to the grounds. Eventually after a few minuets searching I found a climbable part of the wall
I scrambled over the ivy clad stones and managed to jump down and land in a small clearing inside the compound.
The trees were thick around me and the light was starting to fade. There was still no hospital to be seen, infact there were no actual buildings at all. Venturing on, the area around was not at all what I had expected. It was like a sceen from Swallows and Amazons, the land was on a decline away from the gates and the ground was like the surface of an unloved pond. Water was running in between the tress and there was a green carpet of pond weed covering the majority of the ground
Dotted all over were tree houses (a few planks nailed into brances, which by local standards is impressive), wooden pallets bridging the marshy ground from tree to tree and child sized bear traps in the ground that had previously been triggered by an unwiting victim.
After hoping to find a crumbling secret hospital, I was initialy disapointed as I couldn't see any remnants of it anywhere. What I had found though was just as puzzling, it felt like I had found my way to Nevernever land and Peter Pan and the lost boys were silently watching me from their tree top look out posts, with their sling shots aiming down at me.

I could hear the calls of my son wanting to know where I had gone and come over the wall to join the exploration. I set off back, re tracing my steps over the bridges to avoid falling foul of any un-disturbed bear traps still camoflaged with a layer of braken over their pits.
I knew everyone would have long since finished their icecreams and would be egar to head for home, so I reluctantly found the part of the wall I had climbed and dragged myself back into sunday afternoon suburbia.
I got back into the car and with my muddy, scuffed boots and attempted to explain my adventure on the way home. Needless to say my mint choc chip icecream was now a warm slush in a paper cup.

I've since found out that the isolation hospital did once fill the bizarre woodland enclosure that I stumbled into. It was bulit in 1896 and had been called Morton Banks Fever Hospital. It was used during the world wars for injured soldiers and then was finally closed in 1974 .... but thats another story




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