Down in the Dungeons

The first time I went to see the bluestone building for Deaf Children Australia I was taken down into the basement.  The basement was pretty much what you would expect it to be.  Dark, dingy, and dank.  It is in the basement where you start to see why the building needs restoration and saving.  However, there are other things down there as well.

There is a very dirty bath down there.  I would have said small swimming pool, but it is the bath.  Who wouldn’t like to have this as there main bath?  Though, it would cost a fortune to fill it with the price of water these days.

I was told that the girls would get bathed first, and the joke was, they would pee in the water and then the boys would have to go in the water after them.  Girl power.  I can’t imagine something like this happening now.  No way would a group of girls be allowed to bathe together like this now.  Nope can’t see it.  There would be some rule about OH&S that would say it was wrong and not allow it.  I do love the story.

The basement is quite dark, one of the lovely things about is that, while much of the space is used for other things, it hasn’t necessarily been renovated or changed.  The basement is pretty much how it would have always been.  So if you look behind the stuff that is dumped there, you get to see some of the original beauty of the building, like this bath.  It is very dirty, but it has been left pretty much as it would have been.

Can you believe it, I took some detail shots as well.  I have no idea what this was, a switch, a bell, who knows.  It is on the basement wall and is just left there.

Another detail, this was on the door.  The work is so wonderful, and we suspected it was hand made.  It is such a beautiful piece of craft that has just been left on a door that almost no one sees anymore.

I like the basement and there are many stories down there, as there are with much of the building.  The only real problem is how dark it is, and how hard it is to photograph.  Some of the spaces are small, and because it is basically used as a storage area, there is stuff everywhere.  I hope to see the bare bones of it more.  I also might have to start using a flash to get some images for it.  The camera doesn’t cope well with the really dark areas.

I went back last Thursday and wandered around taking some photos.  I keep hearing stories and then I only remember part of them.  I would like to remember more, so I might have to start recording some with my phone.  I find the stories of the building just as interesting as the buildings, so I know you will like them as well.

As this is an organisation for the Deaf, they get a lot of their funding by donations, so if you would like to donate some money to Deaf Children Australia, then click on Donate Here.