Run-ins with police ‘an occupational hazard' for urban explorer Rhys, 21

URBAN explorers live a secret life navigating dangerous buildings, angry landowners and the police.

- BY CHRIS PATEL

Urbex (short for urban exploration) is a popular hobby that involves visiting, entering and filming abandoned buildings, from hospitals to snooker halls, shopping malls to pubs.

Rhys Jones-Ager, 21, has been involved in urbex on and off since he was 15 when he plucked up the courage to explore the derelict St Thomas’ Hospital in his hometown of Stockport.

Rhys said: “I suddenly found it quite fascinating. There are still signs that tell you what the place was, what it did, tell the story of the people that worked there.

“You are looking into bits of the world that are at the end of their life, getting a glimpse of something for the last time.”

Sometimes, the stories these buildings tell are personal for Rhys.

He recalls visiting Woodford Aerodrome: “My granddad and uncles all worked at Woodford where it was an aircraft factory.

“So I wasn’t just finding the story of the people that worked there, I was actually finding a bit of my own history.”

Urbex is popularly believed to be a couple of hundred years old.

According to urbexhub.com, exploring ruined and abandoned buildings dates back to the Romanticism movement of the 18th and 19th centuries.

It was during the Victorian era that a cultural obsession known as “ruin lust” flourished, as people became fascinated with the crumbling castles, abbeys and monasteries across Britain and Europe.