Very few people are really trying to publicise these places.”Ĭraine goes exploring at least one night a week. “There are places people have accessed but they’ve never posted the photographs online, “ Craine says, “not only because the legal repercussions could be severe, but also because if anyone else knows those places are accessible that could heat the place up.
If he or she does get access, they may well want to keep it to themselves.Ĭlimbing on to London's rooftops helps you make sense of the city – watching it twist and turn year by year In any case, he says, it is possible to see many of these locations on private tours – that is the whole idea of Open House, to give the public access to the usually inaccessible – but the urban explorer wants access on his own terms. “It’s no more politically motivated than any other hobby, except that the people who engage in it are more willing to break the law.” “I mainly do it because it’s fun,” he says. Photograph: Matthew Adams/PAĬraine is sceptical about the political dimension Garrett claims for urban exploration. There are around 100 active urban explorers in London, and tens of thousands across the world. It doesn’t even have to be that interesting a space once you’re in there.” “It’s the challenge of getting in that really interests me. What he enjoys most, he says, is circumventing security. He clearly sees the Thames Tideway supersewer as another target rich in possibility once construction starts.
He explores high-rise construction sites, utility tunnels, Crossrail and new tunnel-boring projects such as the Lee Tunnel supersewer. As he got older, he added layers of planning to every operation.Ĭraine goes out in a small group, and puts great emphasis on the research that real “infiltration” requires. He grew up near a closed Victorian asylum in south London, and used to enjoy sneaking in with his mates. Jed Craine, a 27-year-old Londoner who says he has been an urban explorer since his early teens, gives me a somewhat less politicised view. “Every attempt at radical expression becomes appropriated,” he says regretfully. He dislikes what he calls the growing “commodification” of the activity, with explorers building up a profile by performing some stunt in a hard-to-access location, thereby attracting sponsors for their next undertaking. Garrett admits urban explorers are mostly men, but claims it is more diverse than mountain climbing or scuba diving. They share information and photographs on urban exploration websites such as 28 Days Later, and even stage events such as the International Drain Meet, where “drainers” (the popular term for committed sewer explorers) congregate. Garrett reckons there are around 100 active urban explorers in London, perhaps a few thousand in the UK, and tens of thousands across the world, concentrated in major cities and often communicating with explorers elsewhere. What the British Transport police wanted to do was stop me from publishing photos and stop me from writing about this thing, because what we did undermined their narrative of security.” Garrett had demonstrated that the secret, impenetrable world was not so secret or impenetrable after all.īradley Garrett at the top of Battersea Power Station in London. “When I reflect on the whole process,” he says now, “I realise that the trauma we were subjected to was actually the point. The case dragged on for two years, and he was eventually given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay costs of £2,000. “They didn’t have any evidence that we had committed any criminal damage, so they charged us with a thought crime,” he says.
In 2012, Garrett and several fellow explorers were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit criminal damage. It’s also fraught with difficulty and danger. This breaking into closed-off spaces isn’t an explicitly political act – there is usually no attempt to change anything specific – but in an over-regulated, over-securitised world, it feels like a way of kicking against the system. “There’s a very particular kind of agency that comes from using the body to get into spaces that you’re not supposed to access,” he says, “and that translates very easily into a kind of politics.” Garrett talks about the “personal sense of empowerment” urban exploration provides. There’s an addictive quality to it, because once you start going into these spaces and understanding the city in a different way, it’s very hard to fall back into normal rhythms.” “You are able to see the abandoned buildings, the infrastructural systems, the construction sites, all the things that comprise the city. “Exploring the city gives you a chance to understand it in a different way,” Garrett tells me.