By torchlight, Urbex London slip into abandoned hospitals, schools and restaurants around the capital to make content. Urban exploration has become a race against time as TikTok teens smash up buildings for followers.
Night settles over the outskirts of London. The camera shakes as it moves through wet grass, the beam of a torch slices a path through the darkness. Beyond the trees, a vast shape looms: an abandoned school. Paint curls from the walls, and wind whistles where the windows once were. Cobwebs criss-cross over forgotten chairs. The urban explorers have made it inside.
“Our USP is that we always make sure that it’s at night,” says Dan*, a self-styled urban explorer and content creator who is steadily gaining traction on Instagram and YouTube. “It adds to the atmosphere. It’s a bit more creepy. Things jump out at you. Viewers can make up their own mind whether we’re brave or not.”
Dan and Rick*, who co-run the account, are investigative types inspired by the rise in urban exploration – or urbex – which has exploded online in recent years. The Reddit thread r/Urbex has approximately 45,000 members, many of whom post daily about their adventures. TikTok is flooded with teens sprinting through derelict warehouses, smashing windows in exchange for followers. But Urbex London wants to do things properly. There’s less adrenaline, more curiosity.
“We don’t want to be a throwaway TikTok saying, ‘We’re in this place and it’s an absolute shithole.’ We leave that to the younger generation who just want to drink and smoke there.” Dan knows there is a large audience for content and that subscribers are gained by looking for interesting time capsules, not buildings full of broken bottles and furniture.
Urbex involves commuting through an ordinary suburb, spotting a boarded-up doorway and dropping a pin on WhatsApp to explore at the weekend. Dan spent years in construction before retraining as a video editor almost a decade ago – experience that now informs how he navigates buildings that are often structurally unstable.
“We’ve been places where the floor’s fully compromised. It won’t just hurt us, it will destroy the whole building,” he says. “As much as we want to show off that room, we’re not going to force it. We’re not going to do anything that would compromise health and safety.” Dan has so far avoided injuries on any of his visits.
“We’ve definitely pushed the boundaries and taken chances but these are always calculated risks.”
Urbex London would never smash windows or break in. “If there’s an entry there, we would obviously try doors, handles, windows,” he says. “But we would never force our way in.” Once they make it inside, however, the explorers can relax – they describe the interiors as calming environments.
On one occasion they spent two weeks scouting a military hospital near Cambridge (a listed building), mapping security routes on satellite view and researching building plans and fences. When inside, they set off an alarm and sprinted back out. “It was like a race against the clock to get out,” Dan laughs.
On another occasion, they tried to access a closed Loch Fyne Oysters restaurant which they knew had elegant features from dining there previously. Despite trying all routes, they couldn’t access the inside. On the way home, they stumbled across a better restaurant to explore. Dan says: “We’ve wasted a long time not being able to get into places, and then eventually finding out that it has been knocked down and they have built flats.”
Timing
In London, time isn’t on the urban explorer’s side. “The turnaround between a building being abandoned to being occupied or demolished is fast,” Dan says. “Unless you’re in there quickly, you’ve got no chance.” Spontaneity and instinct matter. By visual inspection alone, Dan can often estimate when a building was constructed, how long it’s been left, and whether it’s worth the effort.
“I could edit these videos in a way where they’d feel super dramatic… But I don’t have time. I still have a day job!”
“If it’s right on the High Street and there’s graffiti and every single window is smashed…it’s essentially a warehouse. It’s probably got nothing in it. It’s not going to be worth our time.” They are hunting and filtering locations, anticipating the footage before the camera is turned on. First they go on a scoping mission to analyse whether there is a security firm and how strong the fences are.
When they do film, they keep it unfiltered; “With videos, I tend to just leave them alone,” Dan says. “I am not trying to force an emotion on people.” They avoid dramatic AI ghost voice filters and horror soundtracks, typical of some TikTok accounts. “I could edit these videos in a way where they’d feel super dramatic… But I don’t have time. I still have a day job! And I don’t want to.”
Fear
Dan’s top concern is that they bump into someone who shouldn’t be in the building or that they startle someone who reacts. In the past they’ve found makeshift beds and heard unexplained noises.
In one abandoned boarding school, it went “eerily quiet”. “It was almost like a soundproof room,” he says. “And then we both heard it… someone cleared their throat. We immediately looked at each other.”
They searched the entire upper floor and found no one. “It’s an unsolved mystery,” Dan says. “I don’t believe in ghosts… I feel like there’s always a logical answer. But it’s unexplained.”
Another time, they followed what sounded like growling through a corridor. “Turned out to be pigeons echoing down the hallway,” Dan grins. Where others would flee, he’d rather confront the noise. “I’d rather head towards a storm than run away from it.”
Politics
Dan isn’t too worried about being caught by the police as trespass is a civil matter in England. If there is no criminal damage or aggravated trespass, the police can only attempt to escort them off the site. It is up to the owners of the building to pursue the matter or not. “But that’s a risk we’re willing to take”, explains Dan.
However, the police now assume many urban explorers are there to cause damage. Young people chasing TikTok fame have wrecked interiors and leaked locations which have then gone viral. In Surrey, teenagers recently set fire to an old asylum building.
By the time Urbex London gets to a location, they are often too late. “Teenagers got in there before us and smashed the whole thing up in a couple of hours, and they ruin it for everyone else.”
“I’d rather head towards a storm than run away from it.”
As a result, the scene has become political. “There’s very much a hierarchy… it’s trying to gain people’s trust that we won’t publish locations on a forum,” he explains.
Between trusted explorers, there’s an active market of buying and selling fresh locations. Explorers are willing to pay a higher price for any building of value, but there is always a fear that a disreputable explorer will double the price.
Besides producing content, the main priority for Dan and Rick is the joy of finding somewhere forgotten, armed only with torches. Dan says: “It’s a good outdoor hobby rather than just sitting around. Some people go down the pub and get pissed. We don’t. Essentially it’s just me and a friend having a bit of a laugh.”
*surnames withheld to protect privacy