St. Augustines.
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St Augustine’s care home was built on the grounds of the home of the Hales Family who lived in “Cobridge House” during the 18th and 19th Century. Roman Catholic nuns originating from Lisbon bought the house in 1899, and then built the “Little Sisters of the Poor Convent” on the grounds between 1902 and 1903. After an extension to the convent in 1911.
A change of use was registered in 1994, and St Augustine’s was opened as a nursing home for the elderly. Seven years later the property was altered once again to cater for refugees and asylum seekers, something that it was used for up until it’s closure in 2005.
Demolition is now underway to start construction of a new 33 bedroom care home.
Since its closure in 2005 St. Augustines has remained untouched and intact, no one even knew it had closed as it always gave the impression it was still in use, that and the fact that the building is in exceptional condition and has always seemed sealed.
It was only in late 2007 that we discovered that the site had been closed, with news like this it was only a matter of time before it was explored but for some reason we put the place in the back of our minds as more pressing explores took over.
Fast forward to a few weeks later and we heard news from Alley, she had called into the Mercedes showroom which backs onto the care home to ask for information, to which they was more than helpful and even arranged for us all to visit the place before demoltion work was to start.
Sadly though this didnt happen due to us all having other commitments at the time, with that it was forgotten about again until March when myself and Storm drove past and noticed that the demo teams had moved in.
With time now being of the essence it was now or never to explore this place.
So a quick call to Gazza and the plans where set! We arrived early evening and had a quick look round the perimeter for access which was so easy it was untrue.
Five minutes later and we where exploring this rather extensive care home in detail, unfortunatley the upper floors are completeley stripped and some sections of the roof have entirely gone!
Not discouraged though we continued the explore and found a few interesting little items along the way including a rather sinister looking santa on one of the upper floors.
And enjoyable explore and just in time too!!!
Date : March 2008 : Location : Stoke-On-Trent : Explorers : Havoc : Gazza
