Pennine Way Hotel - 09/11/07

The Pennnine Way Hotel in Oldham was built in 1972 and has 130 rooms and three stars, although when we were walking round I found it difficult to understand how, the housekeepers obviously hadn't been in for a while.

This seven storey concrete monstrosity of 70s design closed in August of 2006 after Oldham council bought it for an undisclosed sum (rumoured to be about £1.6M), the site is being cleared to make way for redevelopment of the town's West End.

Bungle and I have had our eye on this place for months and when the demolition team arrived onsite recently we realised it was now or never, besides, they would have to switch that bloody Redcare alarm off at SOME point!!

Plans were in place, we both had evening passes from our respective wives and/or girlfriends and the night was set. Then, some wino from Stockport decided he wanted in on it too, typical. So, the plans were changed and the wino and I arrived in Oldham at about half nine to hook up with Bungle and the man of mystery dcg, who had also decided to join the party.

Access to the site was fairly straightforward as was access to the building itself and once in we quickly realised the electricity had been cut. Leaving us free to wander around at will, so we headed to the roof.

After spending about forty minutes taking in the views we headed back down into the hotel itself but were a little disappointed by the lack of hotel goodness like beds and stuff, the place was rather bare, to say the least, although we did find some cracking 'wheels of Steel', that quickly had four cameras pointed at them from various directions.

Making our way down through the hotel to the kitchen area, Bungle spotted a police car outside, they'd pulled someone over, but were stood on the roadside opposite looking in our direction, considering the amount of torches we had, the place was probably lit up quite nicely. Anyway, the guy they'd stopped was plastered, leaving them with a load of paperwork and us with free reign. Result.

We stood in the darkness and watched them for about twenty minutes or so before the drunken idiot got out of the back of the cop car, locked his 4x4 and was eventually driven away by the cops in the direction of Five-Oh headquarters.

I think we spent about two and a half to three hours mooching round before making our exit, where we came face to face with a torch wielding pikey, thought we'd been busted at that point, 'til he ran off and jumped over the fence!!

I'm glad I did this one, an Oldham landmark that will soon be gone. Visited with Bungle, dcg and Havoc. A good night, very good.

TnM :->

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