The Springs Hotel & Golf Course

The Springs Hotel, built in 1874, was once owned by famous Deep Purple member Ian Gillian. He purchased the hotel in 1973 with a former Girlfriend, undertaking extensive restoration work. It was the couple that commissioned the hotels unique guitar-shaped swimming pool in the grounds. The hotel's last owners quoted that any potential profits from the hotel were being eaten up by online booking companies and increasing upkeep costs. The building closed in October 2014 with a undecided future, and unfortunately has been left abandoned ever since. The current owners of both golf course and hotel Mr and Mrs Franklin have decided to solely focus on the golf course business, and have said it would be an investment of millions to update the hotel.

The hotel itself has a massive 32 bed room capacity, and is still on the grounds of the running golf course whom boasted 400 club members in 2014.

Finding our way into site was surprisingly easy, but into the building itself, not so much. That’s when we bumped into two more urban explorers, and all together we explored the building. The majority of the building was in great condition, except for one or two rooms on the ground floor to the left of the complex, where mold had taken hold, and some of the floors and ceilings have been effected by damp. A lot of hotel related items, such as kettles, TVs, mattresses and other paraphernalia have been left around, which made for an interesting explore, and even a child's battery powered car!

It's a particularly popular spot at the moment, even spotting another group on our way out. I suspect the site is not going to stay so secretive or spotless for very long.

This is another site we switched on our recording camera on for, and if you click our link to the right, you can see our walk around soon on our YouTube page!