Tales of the Urban Explorer: The Central Hotel

We gazed upon the ‘The Central Hotel’ and both thought, “how do we get in there?”

Instead, we entered Just Gents Stylists which happens to be next door. You can see it on the far right side of the image (below).

This is kind of a continuation from that 'oh-so-fun explore' that could well have housed a murdered dead corpse for all we know. If you want to read more, then click the link above.

The Central Hotel opened 20th March 1939. The hotel had a full pub licence and sold real ale from the bar at various times in the 1980s and 1990s. It ceased trading on 4th March 2013 and was for sale but has since been damaged by fire on 25th February 2016.

Source

Opening just before the Second World War was unfortunate timing, and I am guessing business was bad for a good few years.

Source

I could find just a solitary image from the past, dated around 1965. The surrounding geography appears to have changed significantly, in particular, that large monument just left of the hotel has gone.

'The Central Hotel' loomed and I was expecting elaborate wood carvings, rotting beds completely decked with naked skeletons, and on closer inspection, skulls with eye sockets filled by hungry colourful maggots feasting on the dead.

“Mate…, this is fucking shit, there’s not even any plasterboard attached to the walls?”

Talk about a downer, this was making 'Just Gents Stylists' look good. Speaking from a safety perspective, 'The Central Hotel’ was not going to collapse if we took one step too far in a certain direction.

This was one solid building, despite being torched several years beforehand. Everything seemed to have been taken, including basic décor, and there was no evidence of renovation work.

We walked the corridors taking note of the 'words of wisdom' once again and wondered if we could attain some state of enlightenment simply by reading the words and humming a mantra.

The messages were a little different but the writer still can’t spell for shit.

I was not thinking about 'using the lift as a means to escape', in fact, the door would not open, it was jammed.

'Hitler was a power… what?'. I am unsure if the writer is an Aryan supporter or otherwise. He seems to have crossed out the 'White Power' part.

We descended hoping for at least a bar that perhaps the undead would be happy to drink at.

Sadly it was exactly the same, with little left besides gloomy empty spaces such as this one, which are admittedly quite photogenic.

Moving with care past the hole in the floor, the next room looked similar but showed more marks of the arson attack. The ground floor window was missing giving us perhaps an alternative exit.

The filing cabinets were empty, or rusted closed. Someone had left their hoodie.

Why not get your shopping, have a bite to eat while taking a smoke followed by some hard drugs preferably in the order? That is what the picture tells me.

A little more digging and I might find an entire set of gear that belongs to 'Mr. Smackhead'. Maybe he shoots up naked?

You need to look hard at this to see the once grandeur it portrayed. Having bare walls doesn’t help things.

The 'Private' room looked to be teeming with priceless artifacts from the Great War such as used Pringles boxes. Sadly it was locked.

Finding the back door wide open, we took a breather from the wild excitement of inside to grab a few rear externals. Now that sounds a little perverse.

If it looks dilapidated from the front, the back is much worse, with a host of trees and bushes competing for wall space.

Surely there was more to ‘The Central Hotel’ than this? I headed back inside to find more gloom and vowed to look a little harder.

We found a cellar area and descended. These used to be wine racks, and though I am unfamiliar with the individual brands, ‘Claret’ is in my vocabulary.

Some terrible CDs, containing equally terrible Christmas Music to annoy all the guests; there was more junk down in the depths of this basement than anywhere else.

Knowing 'The Central Hotel' closed in 2013 explains the pricing structure. Two courses for £7.50 is particularly cheap, especially seeing the offers when I opened up the menu.

‘Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding’; how many of my overseas readers know what ‘Yorkshire Pudding’ is?

The rest of the cellar was typically grim and if Urban Exploring wasn’t so popular, a wonderful location to hold someone for ransom. I guess modern kidnappers have all figured out that we countless explorers foil their dastardly plans in these times.

The arson seems to have made it into the depths. I spotted burn marks throughout the area.

To climb up there, you needed to delicately move the protruding pipes out of the way.

One day I will ask a smackhead why the most depressing part of a building is where they choose to sleep and shoot up. I would prefer it to be on an upper floor with at least some natural light to bask in, with added warm sunlight.

We ascended using a different set of steps and headed out via the back entrance.

It looks well sealed up but images can be misleading. Walking toward the front of the building we noticed a couple of cops prancing around the entrance to ‘Just Gents Stylists’.

We should have walked away but stopped and curiously looked on. They turned and spotted us, gloves on, huge light in hands, filthy shoes but appeared to be of the rare species of cops who don’t notice anything.

Ignoring us, they continued fiddling with the broken door of ‘Just Gents Stylists’ hoping a couple of smackheads might emerge, semi-conscious and with needles sticking out of their arms.

Are all cops in Birkenhead, dumbasses?

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