Tales of the Urban Explorer: Rutland House

I should have visited ‘Rutland House’ in 2020. At the time, @dizzydiscovery and I had already ‘done’ Sheffield but as the city is a derelict wreck couldn’t manage it all in a single day.

Day two had never happened for any number of reasons leaving lots still to see, and during that two-year gap, many of our targets now didn't exist, due to renovations or demolition.

We were in fact, looking for ‘George Barnsley & Sons’, another business connected to this building that was former student accommodation.

Rutland house was converted to the 'Rutland House Hall of Residence' in 1995. As student accommodation, the building was arranged as three self-contained flats over the ground, first and second floors.

The basement was used as storage, partly by the National Videogame Museum which is located nearby. The properties typically catered to foreign students.

Due to the ever-growing number of affordable and modern student accommodation buildings being developed across the city, Rutland House was closed in 2018. Since then, squatters have taken over the building and are refusing to leave.
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My occasional co-explorer @lpff says in his blog that the squatters are aggressive and prone to attacking intruders with knives. I rarely see anyone in properties, and would likely hear them before any encounter. As usual, I was unaware of the supposed knife wielders before my visit.

I wouldn't normally expect access to a large house access via some huge open door like this one but will take anything that’s given.

If this was ‘Rutland House’ then I am a flying monkey with huge pink hairy toenails. If this was the way in, it was a very strange route.

Whatever this was, it was once some type of business and is now thoroughly vandalised.

… and one that doesn't pay for their TV license. I mean it's only £154 a year to watch two channels that are commercial-free.., what a deal! This TV license scam is due to end in the year 2027, and it's about fucking time.

Why would a garage or storage business need a TV anyway? The BBC seems to think that the common Englishman can't exist or live without TV.

Tempting as it was to dig through the paperwork of ‘anonymous business #432’, I gave it a miss. It was all a little soggy for my standards.

After noticing a handy hole in a solid door someone had made, probably with the use of a handy sledgehammer, and in the direction of 'Rutland House', we guessed it may just lead us there.

Fortune had prevailed, and after some crawling, we found ourselves within the bottom floor of this squatter knife-wielding, drug-infested mess and making probably far too much noise.

She does sound a little foreign and has a tax bill of over £700. That's not peanuts to a starving student living on beans and chips. I do wonder if Oana legged it back to her own country to escape this demanding payment.

If Hector, the taxman visits expecting his cash, Hector’ representative may get stabbed in the back instead by one of the reported frenzied protective squatters.

Prices must have been cheap at ‘Rutland House’, I mean the facilities are not exactly pleasing to the eye.

There is the internet, I suppose that's a plus if this old yellowing ADSL router still works.

It’s always comforting to know there’s a backup router hanging around for emergencies.

Leaving the dingy ground floor we ascended oblivions to whom, or what might be up those stairs.

Switching my huge torch off, I could see more clearly now. The beds were unmade, but you can hang your clothes.

Someone wanted to experience throwing a leather chair through a window. You don't get opportunities like this every day. As a negative consequence, the nights may be a little chillier in this particular room.

The communal hang-out room is where you can do some hard drugs and chill on the leather recliners. If I was a squatter, I would not tear up my own furniture.

I can see why ‘Rutland House’ is a better place to live than the normal derelict pubs I see sleeping bags in. There are some decent beds here without slash marks.

The corridors are a little tougher to navigate than a regular house, but with free accommodation, albeit with no running water, connected gas, or electricity, it is good value living.

Seeing not a soul, we descended, and headed back to the 'garage' area, taking care not to fall down the stairs. Sometimes there are rails and other times they had been violently ripped away.

We took a few minutes to check out more of the ‘garage’ and found that it appeared to be made up of multiple businesses.

I found this on Amazon, who incidentally sells this ‘book’. There were many copies scattered around in one section of the 'garage'. Giles is a criminal so cannot be relied on according to this comment.

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We made out way to that ‘hole’ on the left and found the remains of what the ‘National Videogame Museum’ had stored in there.

Sadly these old video consoles from the 1980s had been severely vandalised. I grew up playing on these things and wasted lots of money during this decade.

The room was teeming with old full-sized arcade games, full of dust, scrawled writing in the dust, circuit boards ripped out of their hearts, and smashed glass; an absolute shame.

We exited the 'garage' differently and entered 'George Barnsley & Sons', but that one is for another day.

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