Two Girls One Building

When we visited the building, very little was known to us about the site. It was recommended by a friend who had been past the site many times and had thought from the Tudor beams on the tower, the site could possibly be an abandoned farm house of sorts. We later found that not to be the case! A little research online showed that the site was previously Esso Research Centre Abingdon (ERCA). Most of the site has been demolished, but for some reason this building has been left remaining. I believe the site was built around the 1950, and was Esso's main technical center for fuels and lubricants. The site was purchased with planning permission back in 2016 by Tesco, who had plans to turn the site into a Dot-Com warehouse. The permission was opposed at the time, but was accepted with some conditions. These included archaeological investigation, contamination clause and commencement within three years. As this was published back in 2016, it can be assumed this is no longer going ahe...

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....

The site was built in 1912 as a radio transmission station. Later in 1986 it was decommissioned, and redeveloped into a training college, only to be closed again in 1993. The site was then leased to Tom  Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) as a motorsport development center. In 2002 the team had a bad season and the site changed hands to the Super Aguri F1 Team from 2006 to 2008. From 2003 Motorsport powertrain specialist Menard Competition Technologies Ltd Were on site. This company had financial difficulty and finally dissolved on the 13th of May 2014. Since early 2015 the site has been abandoned, and was recently put up for sale. Plans were submitted for demolishment and the construction for a number of flats, but this was reportedly rejected by the council in 2016 as they would prefer the site become an employment base once more as the building had created 230 positions. This massive 150,000 square feet expanse was our first industrial explore. I wish I had taken more photographs, but ...