Tales of the Urban Explorer: Clarence High School

I am going to have to mention several Facebook explorers in this one. One reason was, that there was no shortage of derogatory comments etched over some of the décor, and the other being, that we met several inside 'Clarence High School’.

Call it childish if you like, but the things I saw did make me chuckle more than once. Anyone can have an opinion on other explorers, be it negative or positive. I prefer to be 'Switzerland’ for the most part and remain impassive.

We knew #hingeandbracket were already in ‘Clarence High School’ somewhere. @anidiotexplores occasionally partners with them, and being ‘lady explorers’, they are in the minority. I thought it would be good to say ‘hello’ considering they have shared some great time capsules with us in the past.

Clarence High School in Formby closed around five years ago due to "financial pressures" which left the company running it, Nugent Care, to announce the closure.

@anidiotexplores was furiously typing away on his fingerprint-strewn phone, while I looked for someplace to park.

“She’s not responding, and I don’t know the access point”, he growled with some exasperation.

I gazed over our target and the sheer size of it. This was not some derelict wreck but an almost functioning secondary school. The way in could be anywhere, and a direct route would be very helpful.

What looked like a caretaker’s house close to the main entrance was giving me bad vibes. It looked very much lived in, and someone was milling around in the small garden like a placid zombie, arms waving around haphazardly.

Gouge on your bloody human parts indoors will you, for fuck sake, was going through my mind.

"Got it", chirped up my comrade with a look of optimism.

Fortune was with us and zombie-man appeared not to notice us passing by his 'Gatehouse of the Undead'. Maybe this variant did not have a constant insatiable appetite for human flesh. You do meet all types in the end and zombies too have their different breeds.

‘Clarence High School' looked perfectly serviceable from the exterior but the inside told a different story. The ground floor was saturated with water running from somewhere above.

Some fucking idiot turned on the taps and left them running

We half-waded across the wet-room, and out of the soaked floor. Fortunately, it was restricted to a small portion of the school and we soon found dry land.

I felt this was going to hold a lot of items and I was not wrong. ‘Clarence High School' was being severely tour-bussed at the time, and that meant stuff was going to be scattered everywhere.

I never had such warnings when at school. Kids were oblivious to dangers, and that led to a more carefree existence.

When your exploration is huge, you can't go digging so much unless you want to spend the whole day inside.

It's a school but doesn't look at all like one.

Ooh.., a cheap and nasty keyboard and plugged in. I resisted the urge to play as I was unsure who else was in the building. We had not encountered anyone yet, and had heard no sounds, such was the size of the place.

My views were of a normal school, but with a lack of tables for the students. Perhaps it was a standing-only classroom, designed to reduce national obesity.

The initial thought was zombie-man the caretaker used the school in his hungry moments to track down explorers, devouring their flesh and organs. I dismissed the idea as there had been no reports of missing explorers in Liverpool recently.

@anidiotexplorers pores over ancient writings scribbled on the furniture hoping for insights and deeper knowledge.

The writing was deeply profound and forthright. I knew of all these Facebook explorers and took the words to heart. If wise forebearers etched this knowledge, then it must be genuine and authentic.

Ancient technology affronted my vision. Was that a 3.5 floppy drive? How fascinating it is that people lived once before the advent of the humble USB stick or CD-ROM drive.

Guitar Hero guitars? Wasn’t this supposed to be a bloody school, what the fuck is that doing there?

they should be studying advanced algebra or some other equally useless skill

A sixth form is for students who want to hang around for another year after enduring the mandatory five years of school. I wanted out after just two years of school hell.

Yes, very religious; each to their own.

Some rooms had been overturned but still contained plenty of crap to look at.

Another water-drenched room; not content with turning the taps on in just one section of the school, it had been done here also.

At some point, we met #hingeandbracket who told us they had switched off several taps within the upper areas of the school.

Rumour was that 'Amy' came back and scrubbed her name off everything she found. She had a short stint on HIVE but gave up quickly after being attacked and downvoted by @hivewatchers, justifiably so.

Some rooms were teeming with equipment. I love the fact they have several keyboards. My secondary school music teacher was a sixty-something grumpy old cunt, who continually yelled at everyone resulting in nobody learning anything.

I picked up a lot more at primary school and was always musically inclined.

What happened to ‘Julie’ I wonder?

It looks like one of those nightclub areas where you engage in heavy snogging and perhaps some indiscriminate humping. It’s little wonder our emerging fledglings are made up of mostly witless, brainless dumbasses.

Another sodden corridor; most of the school was relatively dry.

Things you don’t expect to see in a school.

I think I went to the wrong school. All I was presented with were incompetent teachers whose main priority was that you wore a fucking tie.

School must be a lot more fun to attend now. It was pure agony during the 1970’s.

Surely they could have taken these when evacuating. I had to buy all these for @dismayedworld when she was going through her GCSE’s and they are not cheap.

Very wasteful.

Horrible Histories are a great idea. If only they existed when I was attaining my impressive grade ‘D’ in History.

More vile words and unspeakable words. I wonder if #BeardedReality ever saw this, and also visited, armed with a scrubbing brush and bottle of Vim.

Bullying still goes on despite all the modern propaganda. What became of Hannah and who wrote this?

As the explore continued, we met #thevoidedviking, who happens to look like one, but has a very English accent. I should congratulate him for not having ‘Exploring with…’ as part of his name.

I personally think ‘Exploring With Twatface’ is a great eye-catching original handle but the oppressive controlling Facebook overlords would close that down immediately

There was a communal photograph which I have included, somewhere on the internet. @grindle will be grimacing reading this, but you do have to say ‘hello’ sometimes and make the effort.

I was more intent on splitting than talking for an hour in an abandoned place to other explorers, so didn’t linger very long.

This area of the school was densely packed with books, equipment, and all manner of other things. It does beggar belief.

I would have killed for one of these in 1982, when copying ZX Spectrum games, tape-to-tape was ‘the thing’.

No such art remained, but children’s art is generally not exactly high calibre.

We left via the soaked room shaking our shoes on exit and warily looking around for zombie-man. It had been a fruitful explore, but being eaten while exiting the grounds was not on our agenda.

FOOTNOTE: I haven't seen a recent report from 'Clarence High School', so can only assume it's now sealed up, demolished or burnt down.

Do you like posting your Urbex content and photography for FREE on Facebook and YouTube? I like to get some form of reward for my work and every time I create I do just that. Take a look at The Urbex Community on HIVE.

If you want to keep creating for FREE then ignore what you are reading. If you want to be like me and gain something other than BUGGER ALL for your work then click here and learn about posting on the HIVE blockchain.