The Horror Labs of Anderlecht

Note: Reader discretion advised. May disturb some audiences. (I'd be worried if it didn't.)

"Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls. . ."

When urban explorers first probed the depths of the neglected building, more than the reek of chemicals upon the air would have made their breath catch in their throats.

Dusty, vacant corridors led our persistent agents to room after room, each full of more disturbing stuff than the last, until they found themselves in the basement: The dungeon laboratory and storeroom of this forgotten place. It was a scene of almost deranged sentiments, to the point of outright horror.

There were ancient, hand-blown bottles of questionable fluids. Syringes and other rusty medical equipment of unknown vintage, scattered on blood-spattered trays. Pages of notes, fading in the light of spiderweb-hung windows.

But worst of all were the various animal heads, intestines, brains, and other assorted parts stuffed into jars throughout the basement of the building, in what surely was one of the creepiest labs ever to grace the earth. The stereotypes and fears that grow out of mad science most certainly loomed large over all who entered.

"It's like being in some crazed professor's laboratory, containing all manner of grotesque animal organs and body parts," reported one urban explorer, a Brit known online only by the pseudonym Chaos. His name is fitting in this instance, yet even it paled in comparison to his findings here. "At any moment you half expect the professor to come bursting through the door to punish you for invading his laboratory."

Such were the Anderlecht Horror Labs, more properly known as The Veterinary School of Anderlecht, in Brussels, Belgium. Chaos and other self-declared expert building-probers crept inside, braving horrific artifacts, toxic residues, and dangerously heavy formaldehyde fumes to capture these last glimpses of the gruesome, decaying evidence of endeavour in physiological veterinary science.

In the so-dubbed Jar Room --- we could also call it The Stash --- we might find the closest real-world match to Snape's fabled dungeon of doom; and since Snape strikes me as a sort of strict, tidy person, Anderlecht would likely surpass his haunt in terms of chaos and random creepiness.

Shelves in here were lined with jar upon jar of animals, or at least parts of them. Some parts were recognizable: a brain here, a colon there; a rotting dog's head, sans nose, a bear's brain, and a sheep's lung; piglets stared through one glass vessel, while a kitten pined in another. Snouts, muzzles and jaws loomed out of rancid soups fermenting in tanks and beakers open to the air.

Other parts were undefinable, merely mysterious and grotesque; particularly when different creatures’ remains were made bedfellows in death: Some were jammed into larger jars, species combined, while others were actually sewn together --- a calf's head connected to a cat's leg, in one instance --- and anyone save for sicko seekers like me would absolutely not want to know why. Chemicals, spilled or leaking from vessels, crusted some of the shelves, along with mold.

I think a lot of us wonder, from time to time, how many places like this actually exist; and of them, how many are actively used and monitored. Urban explorers dare to venture right past "No Trespassing" signs, at times practically heedless of life and limb for the sake of discovery. A few people were spotted, and told off by local authorities, for poking about this location.

And that's without the overall vibe of the place: Here at Anderlecht, you could easily and justifiably worry that a deranged scientist might leap out of the darkness of the basement to punish you for invading his secret laboratory. The punishment? Best not to speculate.
“This," as Chaos said, "really is bad dream material."

Despite its sinister appearance, the lab existed for a positive reason --- to improve medical treatments for animals.
"Strange as this place seems, it once served a crucial purpose, a school dedicated for the training of veterinary surgeons," Chaos said.

The center for experimental animal science was abandoned in 1990 when the institute moved into a new location. Administrators clearly decided that much of the original contents, including the stash of specimens in the basement, would be more trouble to move than their worth.

After all, with the school opening in 1969 and operating in this location for three decades, it's quite possible that some of the specimens were as much as 40 years old. After years of neglect, the formaldehyde that preserved these parts of anatomy was yellowed with age, even partially evaporated, leaving the specimens themselves to slowly disintegrate in grim stages. Garish hues of various organs mingled with a patina of decay, producing a dismal palette reminiscent of a Gothic novel.

The Anderlecht site comprises 19 Flemish neo-Renaissance style buildings, constructed in the early 20th Century, which were later incorporated into the university of Liege in 1969. In 1990, the buildings became derelict and were listed.

Thankfully the structures were slated for restoration. The building of interest here, in which the veterinary school was located from the late ‘60s to the early ‘90s, was inaugurated in 1910; its handsome Flemish Neo-Renaissance style roofs and stonework façades were given protected legal status.

Whether happily or not (depending on one's view), these buildings, like so many other historical architectures, were destined to be transformed into luxury apartments. One by one, they were converted into executive homes, until only the final building remained undeveloped, hiding deep within its bowels the grisly secret of the laboratory.

Unfortunately, I missed my chance to test my mettle with a personal viewing of this unusual, if unsettling, gem of an offbeat tourist location. In 2014, the final holdout of Anderlecht's past --- the surgical school building with its mysterious lab --- was swept clear and rennovated into apartments.

One can only imagine that heavy gloves, even body suits, and gas masks were the order of the day for those who got the unfortunate job of hauling out and detoxifying the Horror Labs! Should the work be done poorly, future clients may find their noses plagued by the sickly sweet, tickling odour of formaldehyde oozing from the walls.

Now, only pictures and memories remain as monuments to the sublime and exquisitely chilling aura of this infamous house of science.

Where once students and professors left behind flasks to gather dust forelornly on windowsills, the rooms will again be bustling with activity, and those who look out from their new home on a fresh landscape may have no true reference for the greatness and horror that was Anderlecht.

And just look who we caught skulking down there, before his innate power drew close enough to disable our electronic camera, set up to tally intruders!

Perhaps having heard of the abandoned lab's imminent demise and making a cursory search for any viable spoils, Snape seems to cast a scornful eye over the jumbled ranks of pitiful specimens left to rot in their sorry methods of preservation. Spoils is about all he'd have found here.
"A bit of fox fur and some vitriol," he was heard to remark a short while later, "very little else remotely viable. . . . These damned Muggles commit crimes against perfectly good resources in their complete ineptitude."

Thanks to the many who contributed these amazing photos, webwise (some are marked as such), for the benefit of this not-for-profit blog and for those of us unable to travel at the critical time to witness this and other places.