10 Shocking Things Found In Abandoned Locations

10. The Crane Mirror

Dating back to 1833, St Brigid’s Asylum in Ireland is among the oldest surviving examples of such buildings. Designed in a prison-like ‘radial’ plan from grim grey stone, by the 1920s it was grossly overcrowded, designed for 840 patients but holding almost 1,500.

Like all good mysteries, the 'crane mirror' posed some intriguing questions. Standing alone in an otherwise unremarkable room, with its strange seashell motif and intricate dancing carved wooden cranes, it stood around 12ft (3.65 metres) tall and suggested something perhaps more at home in a ballet school. But in the 19th Century, and within a lunatic asylum, that explanation seemed most unlikely.

Larger than any door or window in the room, one wonders how they even managed to get it in there. But more intriguingly, why even go to such trouble? Was it some strange passion project installed at the request of a former Medical Superintendent? Could there really have been ballet classes in an asylum? Was it a part of some strange type of therapy? Perhaps it covered up a doorway or something else now hidden behind it? And if so, what? No satisfactory answer has yet been found.