Frightening Times

A Memory of Macclesfield.

In 1997 I worked for a company calles SES security where I was a security officer at Parkside. Over my time there I became fascinated with the layout of the site and spent many many months walking the length and breadth of every building there. I have to say that the main building with the clock tower was one of the most frightening places I have ever been. There was just this feeling of all the tortured souls that had been within its walls. As I am writting this now, the hairs on the back of my neck are jumping. You could just sense the sadness and of the building itself. At the side of the main building with clock tower was what I would desribe as a caretaker's courtyard. I was obsessed with finding the elusive tunnels of Parkside and here is where I found them. At the back of one of the caretaker's buildings was a heavy-duty prison-style red door. Behind this door was miles of tunnels, one of which even led up to Macclesfield General. The end of the tunnel had been long bricked up but through the grill in the ceiling you could see the cars parked up in the hospital car park. The tunnels also contained a section where you could see the old underground cells. A most dark and upsetting place to find yourself standing. These were not like the others upstairs in the main building. Large arched cells barred across the front and old rotted beds in the corners of them, maybe 4 or 5 cells in total. I just couldn't imagine how anyone could be kept down there. Some of the boxes of old files and paper work we found were some of the most interesting. Dating from back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, were hand written documents on which people had been diagnosed as an idiot, imbecile, fool etc. Dark documents from dark times, my friends. Strange small brown envelopes I found deep in the tunnels had to be opened. What I found I can only descride as tissue samples, sealed in a wax blocks so they could be handled and viewed. I found a black and white photo and took it to the security office (I wish I'd kept it now) which showed the chapel full of patients, some of the strangest and saddest people I've ever seen, with the back of the chapel sporting 4 MASSIVE so-called nurses watching over. Sorry but these so-called nurses looked like nothing more than hired muscle, mean and menacing looking. It's sad to say but in its early days Parkside Asylum was a dark and brutal place full of sadness and what can only be described as torture. I could sense the sadness and pain as I patroled the dark corridors of the main annex (no electricity was supplied to the main building, only to the unused but new built annex). I scaled the bell tower many a time to get the view from the top. I must say that the huge clock tower bell was an awesome sight. It was even set it off by accident once, and they couldn't stop the thing for ten minutes. People must have thought it strange as that bell hadn't rung for years.
I sometimes wonder if people in the new-build houses now on the site are aware of just what went on in their own back garden. If there are any more photos out there I'd love to see them. Have been scared half to death in every part of the site. There was also the morgue complete with most of its apparatus. Being as I was 18 of course, I had to have a little lie on the slabs and and a ride in the freezer on a tray. It's been a strange trip back down memory lane for me the second I came across this photo.