Monday, November 04, 2013

Salston Manor Hotel

8 comments:

nina said...

Beautiful work John, just thrilling, so much more exciting to see than Econo Lodges and piano bars with one eyed jacks and color TV in every room.
Perhaps the hotel was formerly a girls school and perhaps the stalls in the back were built to display naughty little governesses in training who curled their hair and wore dunce caps.
Buy it. Take the boards down. Get in a cleaning crew, hire a hotel operating staff and you'd become the best secret getaway ever.

Anonymous said...

Fascinating.

- Aangirfan

john said...

Cheers Nina. I took the photos yesterday when I was helping a friend to move house. We drove past it and I asked him about the place and he told me that it has been closed for about four years. As my usual habit is to carry a camera I asked him to stop on one of the journeys so that we could take a look around. There's so many interesting places tucked away in the countryside around here.

The history of the place seems a bit difficult to track down. I think there has been a house here for a long time and that this one is about 300 years old. It was owned by William Hart Coleridge, the nephew of the poet, who was the Bishop of Barbados and the Leeward Islands. He became ill in 1841 and retired to the house, where he died suddenly on the 21st December 1849.

I very much enjoy your imaginings of the place. Who knows what various dramas must have played out here over so many years?

I know that a passenger plane returning from Spain to Exeter airport in 1980 ran out of fuel and the pilot, knowing the area, safely landed the aircraft in a field just to the south of the hotel. I would like to know more of the history of the families and people who stayed here.

Wouldn't it be a dream to own such such a lovely old building?

john said...

Thanks Aangirfan. Always a pleasure to see you around!

aferrismoon said...

Great to find these run-down places, there's loads here in Prague. The swimming pool shot most reminds me of the people, chatter and splashing, relaxed and now bare.

If u check out englishrussia.com they have regular photo-stories of delapidated buildings, as well as other excellent fotos

cheers

aferrismoon said...

englishrussia.com/2013/11/09/soviet-pool-forgotten-by-people/#more-132758

cheers

john said...

Nice one Aferrismoon, thanks for the link. There are some big empty places around. I think you have put up some photos of some of the places you have there, industrial pipes and machinery, all well worth having a look at before these buildings are gone.

Cheers for now and thanks.

john said...

It's a bit sad to see the pool in the link as it looks like it must have been such a bustley and lively place. You can imagine all the noise and splashing about. Very different from abandoned workplaces in feel.