We initially set off to explore Pyestock, a former aero engine test facility which is situated adjacent to Farnborough airport. The place was however a bit lively to say the least, so we cut our losses and headed for home via Birmingham.

In Coleshill, not far from the NEC, is a large group of buildings owned by the Catholic church. The site is operated by The Father Hudson Society, which was originally founded by a priest, Father George Vincent Hudson. Father Hudson died in 1936 and was buried in the grounds though he was later disinterred and reburied within the Society's church. Though there are active buildings on site there are also a number of abandoned buildings too. One of the abandoned buildings is the Saint Edward's Home for Boys, built in 1904. Although primarily a home for orphaned and abandoned boys it was also a school - in addition therefore to the dormitory accommodation etc. which you would expect to find, there are also school rooms and a chapel within the home. In 1998 the priest in charge of the school was convicted of 18 cases of child abuse and jailed for seven years. After only three years of his sentence he died in jail, but not before the Pope had stripped him of his rights as a priest for his sins. The building has been empty ever since 1996 and the feeling locally is that it should be knocked down because of it's sordid history.

 1st. March, 2012:  An interesting comment was placed in our guestbook today by someone who had been a resident in St. Edwards in the late 50s/early 60s, and I feel it is appropriate to quote it here as there is no substitute for first hand experience:

"I was in St Edwards from 1958 until 1965 and I have some very good memories from my time there. I do not like the way you are showing St Edwards as a depressive and gloomy place. For me at that time it was my home and the other children were my family. People tend to report the bad things in life but forget or do not want to know that there is another side to it. The nuns were generally correct and they looked after the children very well. There were exceptions and sometimes they were strict but that was not very often."
 

So there you have it! Perhaps Saint Edwards was not too bad a place before the selfish actions of the last priest in charge.

Despite it's abandonment the Father Hudson Society have endeavoured to keep the building in something approaching a reasonable state of repair, as we were soon to find to our cost!  As a result of the minimum maintenance approach it has not suffered the usual enormous damage from the ingress of water but it has still been seriously vandalised. Chavs have repeatedly broken in, daubed walls with spray paint and generally trashed the place, leaving very few un-broken windows. As a result there has been a lot of boarding up and all the ground floor windows and exterior  doors have been securely screwed and boarded with wood panels. Having said that, as we arrived we found the door to the kitchen was slightly ajar so we quickly let ourselves in and started snapping away merrily with the camera. We soon moved upstairs and as we wandered through the first dormitory we heard a van pull up outside. Being careful to avoid making ourselves heard we took a peep and to our dismay saw two workmen at the door we had just come in through with tools in hand, about to fit a big hasp and staple - we were rapidly locked in most securely! There was nothing we could do about it whilst the men were still working so we continued quietly with our explore, deciding to worry about how we would get out again afterwards. As it happened we had very little to worry about because we soon found an open, (and unbroken!) window which let us out into a small courtyard completely hidden from view from any of the occupied buildings. All we had to do then was compose ourselves, slip around the corner and walk away through the car park as though we belonged - we hadn't broken anything, we had left the building in the state we had found it, without compromising the security in anyway, we had got our photographs - job done!