Weekly Photo Challenge: Eerie

I have been to many places that you could describe as spooky and even some where Ghosts are supposed to haunt (and in some places I did believe that that was very possible!).  But the place I found the most ‘Eerie’ was the Workhouse I visited last year.

Workhouses started off with the best of intentions, to shelter and care for the poor. But they ended up as perhaps the most hated institutions that Britain has ever maintained.

So here are three images.  The first I find the most eerie…even haunted….

Although today it has been sanitised with new paint and lighting by the National Trust you still cannot escape the truth that confronts you…to the left is a doorway through which men passed (after leaving their clothes in this hallway), children were the centre door and women to the right.  From that point on families were separated and the men were never allowed to mix with the women whilst in the workhouse. Clothes or rather a uniform was supplied and the work began.

The second image is of one of the regimented women’s dormitories, again a little better organised than I expect it was in the 1800’s…….

Workhouses, were just that places where the inmates HAD to work, and by all accounts it was a tough regime. 

Despite that it is just possible that the children (who also had tasks to do) came off much better than in their  life of poverty outside. They did have shelter, they had companionship and they were fed even if it was frugal fare.

But perhaps more importantly this Workhouse had a School so perhaps the children did gain some educational benefit…..

I was free to leave and to an extent very relieved to be able to do so. None the less  I did find the experience very eerie ….a place full of the spirits of the past.

Images at Southwell Workhouse, Nottinghamshire

3rd November

© David Oakes 2013