Tales of the Urban Explorer: The Dudley Ryder School

“Oh shit…, not another”

It seemed like it. Once again we were too late and something that was once very explorable had been resigned to a bloody building site.

Why can't these old buildings, some of which are pre-Victorian be left alone?

The Dudley Ryder School is older than it appears to be. Built in 1825, and created to house 'rich kids' whose parents were forced to pay for their offspring's education, this was the answer.

Two classrooms existed, one for each gender housing a maximum of 100 of the little monsters. Classes were of a similar length to modern-day ones, but the kids were made to attend Sunday school and all that delicious mandatory religion bullshit.

The School was closed in 1981 but was inhabited for other uses for an unknown amount of time, before being boarded up and sealed for years.

Then we arrived, and the builders had beaten us to it. Due to our weekend trip, they were not present, and no doubt down at the pub getting pissed.

Regardless, we were going to have a snoop around, and after struggling to park we snuck past the anti-climbing fencing and descended into the grounds.

Could it be that the external ugly scaffolding had been erected and the internals of his ancient dwelling be untouched?

If this was not the case, we would be leaving. There's little point it snapping brand-new woodwork, new beams, new doors, and windows.

We are not 'Renovation Explorers'. That sounds intensely boring.

The absent builders has done little to stop unwanted guests and we simply walked through a door and sighed with some relief seeing no new décor.

Private schools from 1825 were a little strange, with vintage ovens in the public areas.

The taller style doors which fold inwards very much reminded me of my primary school which I guess was also of Victorian origins. It's been demolished for years, having been deemed unsafe, left for a decade or so, and then flattened.

While the insides of 'The Dudley Ryder School' were untouched, they were also quite bare. I had to look for things of interest.

This Antique fair of 1992 was not hosted here, but somewhere else, a pity.

Those big green doors again, that maybe segregated the boys from the girls. What's the fun in that?

Those paranormal wackos had also been here, no doubt proclaiming it was haunted and bewitched.

We climbed the stairs, having been disappointed so far with the lack of eye candy. It was not going to improve much.

A fancy toilet lid, one more step and you could have viewed the contents. I spared you the sights.

A strange-looking arch and those old wooden doors that can often be found in the Midlands. People in those days were shorter than today's average and you often find yourself ducking to pass through.

Not all the upper rooms had survived unscathed, but the room surprisingly lacked water damage. Maybe it doesn't rain in this part of the country? Fat chance of that, this is still England.

A swathe of cobwebs. Some of the spiders that created all that could be older than me.

It does look like someone tried to paper over the holes in the roof. It's a bad solution all around.

Joiners had no style sense whatsoever in the 19th century and designed doors to look as ugly and unaccommodating as possible.

It could have been a cloakroom, but there was little evidence to suggest it.

Trying to keep awake, we trundled down the dirty wallpapered stairs in search of more. Being bare is worse than it threatening to fall on your head.

The kitchen while being overwhelmingly the most exciting room so far, contained little to drool over.

The water bottle has likely been ditched by those lunatic ghost chasers and was hardly of vintage stock.

…'a vintage plastic bottle of water, there is no such item. We all downed tap water then and had huge natural immunities'…

Exiting through the back door, we started to circle the old school thinking that even two years ago it wouldn't have been any better than today.

We spotted a window at the far end, leading into a different section of the property. After the distinct lack of excitement, @anidiotexplores was climbing through and vanishing on me, again.

It looked like a stand-up classroom with what looked like a very rusty old storage heater and a whiteboard at one end.

Let me tell you, it was all blackboards in those old days with chalk and those white variants arrived much later. If you misbehaved the chalk would come flying your way, and crack you in the teeth if you were unlucky.

The whiteboard was not cool, as it states.

Lovely old property, with loads of character, but a boring, dull exploration. That is my synopsis of 'The Dudley Ryder School'.

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