Livingston’s Explorers
Urban explorers, documenting the unseen By Yvonne MacMillan
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I
nside the Caw Burn storm drain in Pumpherston, it’s pitch black and dangerous.
Two figures walk upright clutching high-powered torches as they make their way carefully along the concrete tunnel. Senses on full alert, they feel excited – more aware of things. The smooth, damp walls glisten in the torchlight and the foot-deep water roars and echoes in the confined space - yet they can still hear the traffic above their heads. On the pair trudge for about 2 hours, deep beneath Houston Industrial Estate, till eventually the space narrows, and they turn back. Finding out more about Caw Burn storm drain and the risky hobby of urban exploring, I’m in the Pumpherston home of Caroline Robertson and Tina Doyle, a mother and daughter team of urban explorers. Tina explains the Caw Burn drain was built to filter the waste from Houston Industrial Estate and points out the added risk of exploring drains – how heavy rainfall locally and in surrounding areas very quickly raises the water levels. The burn itself once flowed above ground, Caroline says, winding its way across the land where the offices, factories and warehouses now stand. “My dad told me he used to swim in the Caw Burn when he was wee.”
or film the uninhabited space. The unspoken rule among urban explorers is, “Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints.” Caroline, a Care Assistant in Broxburn, and daughter Tina, dog-lover and rock music fan who works at Linwater Breeding Kennels, remember how their urban exploring began. In 2004 when Tina was 18 years old, they went for a walk in the grounds of the unoccupied Bangour Village Hospital. Spotting a villa’s door hanging open, they popped their heads round it – but were “Too scared to do anything else!” on that occasion. Caroline had worked there and was curious to see what it looked like now. The air of general decay shocked her. Personal things like ornaments lay around in the dust and debris and thinking of all the human stories made her feel sad she says, but, “The history of it all was so interesting.”
“Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints.” Urban explorers find any kind of derelict, abandoned buildings and hidden structures fascinating. Above ground or below ground it doesn’t matter. Disused factories, old houses, asylums, hospitals, storm drains, culverts, tunnels and bunkers - places the rest of us wouldn’t give a second glance, maybe don’t even know exist, are right up their street. Inside these sites, they photograph
Back home and online, Tina discovered a world-wide community of urban explorers, and she and her mum were hooked. Since then they’ve explored more than 100 sites, mainly in the central belt, and many local sites too, like the ROC (Royal Observer Corps) Post in West Calder - a hidden bunker which was a nuclear monitoring post – and a shale mine in Mid Calder. Tina films each one