VIRTUAL TOUR Part Six: Southern Outbuildings

At the very Southern end of the CRCMH site, there lies a number of little buildings, nestled outside and surrounded by overgrown foliage. We will start here near the maternity side and make our was West. To begin with, you will find this strange ramp which doesn't appear to lead anywhere. Seen through a nearby broken window, Ormrod-Spink, "Launchpad" and Isaac Mangang demonstrate how pointless it is for you by standing on top of it. We thought originally that perhaps it might form part of some underground bunker entrance - a cellar or even the morgue perhaps. But I think we were barking up the wrong tree. The most logical explanation is that there was originally a terrapin hut here, and that this is the ramp that once led up to it.

Opposite the pointless ramp, and to the South, we can make our way across to a terrapin hut that is still in place - the library. We always presumed that it was probably a school room because it has school-type desks inside. A former patient, however, has informed us that this was most definately the library.

There are no longer any book-filled shelves to indicate this, so all you'll find is something that resembles one of those horrible temporary school classrooms in which you froze to death on winter's days as a child.

From here, we head further along to the very bottom South-West corner of the CRCMH site. The forest beyond contains a pathway that will take you to the grounds of Cliveden - a spectacular sight, especially if you emerge at the end of the great lawn at sunset. But what you'll find here in this dark corner of the CRCMH is far more sinister. Easily one of the creepiest buildings in the hospital grounds - The Animal Lab. Allegedly, the name comes from a plaque near its entrance, and it was well known to have been a research building for animal experiments whilst operational. We have it on good authority though that this eerie construction was derelict even during the 1970s.

Approaching the entrance, this fact becomes rather apparent. The Animal Lab is in a far worse state of repair than any other area of the CRCMH. It has such a dark air about it that, being isolated from the main building, we initially thought that this may have actually been the morgue.

On your very first step through the entrance passage, you will recieve perhaps the biggest heart-stopping moment in your foray into the world of the CRCMH. Lying on the floor at your feet is something that the corner of your eye believes is a human corpse - if but for an all too fleeting, yet frightening moment. It is actually a badly constructed dummy made from very heavy materials. None of us could ever figure out why anyone might have made it. But the way that its tatty innards have fallen apart cause it to take on the appearance of a maggot-ridden body, especially if you're not concentrating on where you're stepping at the time - or woe betide, actually walk on top of it. At any rate - your encounter with the fake corpse won't exactly set your mind at ease as you head into the darkness of The Animal Lab.

And dark it is indeed. Virtually pitch black in places, with very few windows. The Lab had clearly been gutted by fire at some point, which has left its walls all charred and peeling. For this reason, it appeared at the end of our short film "The Harrowing" under the name The Black Room - which is what we have all referred to it as ever since. So, leaving you with that film's closing shot - featuring the ghost of Father Haldane grinning from out of the meaningless void - we shall leave this end of the hospital once and for all.

Heading out of The Animal Lab, we make our way back to the inner courtyard area. This can be achieved via a number of routes. The most straightforwardof these is to cruise back up The Grand Corridor, but you could just as easily head around outside past the back of the Western wards, or indeed go back through maternity, or even outside round the front of the CRCMH (to the East). You decide - and we'll meet up again back in the middle of the hospital. Jolly good...