It has been a few years since “Horror Labs” was on our list of places to visit. After much discussion, and against everyone’s wishes, we chose a Monday because we did not want to risk arriving too late or finding the place closed.
Whenever possible, I prefer going out on days when others are at work: one advantage of working irregular hours. We planned to arrive in Anderlecht, a municipality of Brussels, at around ten. Unfortunately, things went differently. The roads were already busy early on, and it only got worse towards Brussels. TomTom soon started guiding us off the motorway, but more red roads kept appearing on the screen, and we ended up stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It seemed as though all of Europe was heading for Brussels because someone was giving away free money.
In the end, it was nearly noon before we reached the outskirts of Brussels. Luckily, not much later I could park near the location. City dwellers are wonderfully indifferent: far fewer things surprise them than when four of you walk through an almost deserted village. You blend comfortably into the crowd in a city, I was thinking. But when we turned the corner and first saw the fence separating us from the location, we knew climbing would not be an option. We knew there was still activity on the grounds, but not whether, or how much, anyone would mind idiots taking cameras and tripods into an old building.
After standing by the closed gate for a while, we walked on to look for a possible way into the building. The alternative we knew, through a basement window, had been sealed. Just as we were leaving, we saw a car indicate that it apparently wanted to enter the grounds. We immediately decided to take a chance. I saw the driver open the gate with a remote control. After the car drove in, we slipped through too and headed straight for the building we wanted. We soon managed to slip inside and paused to listen for anyone in the building. We unpacked our cameras, mounted them on tripods, put on our head torches and headed towards the basement stairs.
Once downstairs, little remained of the beautiful interior. There was a long, dark corridor with small rooms on either side. We knew what we were looking for, and someone soon found the right room. It was a bizarre sight: pets and animal organs, all preserved in fluid, in old glass jars on rickety wooden shelves.

Dark basement room with a preserved animal specimen in a glass jar

The room was pitch-dark. The only light came through a basement window partly covered by a wooden board. It was just enough to illuminate an attractive glass jar containing an animal organ. The room was really too small to work properly with a tripod, and certainly unsuitable for several people taking photographs at once. Yet, as so often happens, a few too many people set up their tripods anyway and start shooting.
Below is a view of the basement as I recorded it:

Wooden shelves filled with glass jars of anatomical specimens
Glass specimen jars on dusty wooden shelves
Large animal specimen in a tall jar with yellow fluid
Preserved animal specimen in an open rectangular glass container
Wall of wooden shelves with numerous glass specimen jars
Dark animal specimen above a glass container in the basement
Table and shelves with scattered jars and anatomical specimens

An interest in old and abandoned places sometimes takes you somewhere strange. But standing among jars of dead animals or animal parts, you really do not want to think about a shelf falling over…
The basement of the Veterinary School, as the location was officially called, was not representative of the rest of the building.
Built between 1903 and 1905, the building is largely in the Flemish Neo-Renaissance style. Its façades are made of white Euville stone and brick. Depending on how much of the stone is exposed, they have a base of Belgian blue limestone. Because the complex stands in a marshy area near the Senne, it has basements throughout, linked by a system of corridors.

Old balance before a dark marble fireplace beside a chair
Open book on a tall table beside a chair against a green wall
Stone stairs with ornate metal railings beneath a window
Wooden glazed cabinet in a hall with open double doors
Small bottles and glass tubes on a windowsill
Open book and three glass bottles on a dusty desk
Old measuring instrument in an open metal cabinet
Black-and-white photograph of chairs beneath a wall plaque in a tall room
Glass jars and a skull on a wooden shelf
Rows of chairs among debris in a decorated hall
View from the stage of chairs and damaged hall walls
Long hall with open doors and a wooden glazed cabinet

After our visit, we found ourselves at the gate again. It was still just as high as before we went in. When we slipped inside, we knew we would have two ways out: climbing or waiting. Since the first was not the obvious choice, we decided to wait and see whether another car might enter or leave.
Our patience paid off: just under ten minutes later another car appeared at the gate. We stood ready in the bushes to slip out as it passed. As soon as the gate was wide enough, the car drove in, and we could walk calmly off the grounds, on our way to another location.