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Abandoned, Disused & Ruined Places

Frideswide said:
The whole lost village, DMV (Deserted Mediaeval Village) phenomenon is one of the things that started my interest in archaeology and the like. I can remember going with my grandfather when he was acting as locum and taking a service in one of the Lincolnshire Wolds' churches.

He stopped the car on the way back and lifted me up to stand on the top of a barred gate. He spent a long time pointing out to me the hillocks and mounds, talking about where the winter light caught the banks and ditches at a raking angle, bringing out the detail. He went into details and I started to see the whole structure of the village: where there was a main thoroughfare, where the gaps for doors were, the patch of nettles in each "house" which showed a difference in the soil and might indicate the fireplace.

Then we drove on 100m and looked at the fields on the other side of the road - reverse-S ploughing strips, rig and furrow. Again he spent time pointing out the features. I remember it being bitterly cold and the light fading even as we looked.
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Was that Sempringham? That was our first year History trip when I went to secondary school, as it was not far up the road. Huge church surrounded by nothing, except you could see the evidence of where the village had been.
 
I remember this TV special on Discovery or History called "Lost cities of the underworld". It mentioned some place in the British isles where their solution to seasonal flooding was to bury the first floor of every building in town. It was a carefully concerted building effort and they build proper walls and stuff... but a few places it still has the old streets usable. Instead of burying all the old streets some of them were converted into tunnels that go UNDER the new streets.

A more personal anecdote comes from when I was a child exploring my cousin's farm. It's a rural area and the house was pretty old. my poking around in underbrush had caused me to find several old trash piles with relics from when the place was new, such as a doorknob made of white ceramic. As I did this I'd get further and further into the woods. one day I noticed a dilapidated wood shack leaning against a tree. It was tiny, barely the size of a closet. I looked inside and found a LOT of glass jars. The shed had once had several shelves, but lack of maintenance had caused them to collapse and their contents fell on the floor. A few were still intact and had food in them.

It's not that odd, until you realize.... "Wait a second... how many hundred pounds of canned food was in the shed when it was abandoned???" I didn't find it until decades after the shelves had collapsed and the food in the broken jars had rotted to nothing. It's easy to imagine how the shed was abandoned. The property was sold and the new owner just forgot it existed if they ever knew.
 
While not ancient, this is some abandoned Second World War history in Cornwall. I need to go back there to do some exploration of the other buildings on site, but I’m waiting for the summer because that place is awful in bad weather.

 
marhawkman said:
I remember this TV special on Discovery or History called "Lost cities of the underworld". It mentioned some place in the British isles where their solution to seasonal flooding was to bury the first floor of every building in town. It was a carefully concerted building effort and they build proper walls and stuff... but a few places it still has the old streets usable. Instead of burying all the old streets some of them were converted into tunnels that go UNDER the new streets. ...
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Would this have been part of the History Channel's Cities of the Underworld series?

https://www.history.com/news/history-vault-cities-of-the-underworld

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0981587/?ref_=ttep_ep_tt
 
A couple of weeks ago I was chatting to someone about the various military bunkers we'd both worked in and he'd recently been working at RNAD Trecwn in Pembrokeshire. This place was supposedly abandoned a while ago and sold off to a private buyer, but this guy said otherwise.
 
Yep the one not far from here supposedly abandoned looks suspiciously well maintained.

Picture 004S.jpg
 
Tin said:
A couple of weeks ago I was chatting to someone about the various military bunkers we'd both worked in and he'd recently been working at RNAD Trecwn in Pembrokeshire. This place was supposedly abandoned a while ago and sold off to a private buyer, but this guy said otherwise.
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That's pretty extensive - can you get into it or is it all securely fenced off? No sign of anything happening there - no vehicles etc..
 
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hunck said:
That's pretty extensive - can you get into it or is it all securely fenced off? No sign of anything happening there - no vehicles etc..
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It's fenced but apparently the fence is damaged in places. There are security teams stationed there 24/7 and if you approach any gates they turn up pretty quickly.
I don't know if it gets much or any traffic any more.
 
This derelict Victorian institute was in use until the 1990s.

Springfield Hospital is located on the massive site of North Manchester General Hospital. Scheduled for demolition, it is surprising to learn that it was still there to be documented by urban explorers. The video is on the long side and some of the banter trying but there is plenty of atmosphere. Face-masks on! Remember to Wash Your Hands! :nurse:
 
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Kinmel hall reminds me of the mansion in Skyfall. Once the home of wealthy people, now a disused relic that's almost ready to fall down.
 
This is a weird one - Abandoned house in Kings Langley.

The occupants appear to have left in a hurry in 2016 leaving most of their possessions - dishwasher with washed plates inside, 5 cars, one of which is a Bentley, designer clothes, pianos & much more. The owners were believed to be called Kozlowska, possibly Polish. Makes you wonder what the story is..

One of the rooms has a huge snooker table left abandoned, with the a cue and balls still on the table as if it was left mid-match


The mansion, which has eight bedrooms, six bathrooms and four reception rooms (pictured), is well past its glory days, with five abandoned cars littering the overgrown grounds, including a rusty Bentley


The stunning piano sits in front of the window looking out on to the grounds, with a half finished game of chess eerily sitting on the coffee table
 
hunck said:
This is a weird one - Abandoned house in Kings Langley.

The occupants appear to have left in a hurry in 2016 leaving most of their possessions - dishwasher with washed plates inside, 5 cars, one of which is a Bentley, designer clothes, pianos & much more. The owners were believed to be called Kozlowska, possibly Polish. Makes you wonder what the story is..

One of the rooms has a huge snooker table left abandoned, with the a cue and balls still on the table as if it was left mid-match


The mansion, which has eight bedrooms, six bathrooms and four reception rooms (pictured), is well past its glory days, with five abandoned cars littering the overgrown grounds, including a rusty Bentley


The stunning piano sits in front of the window looking out on to the grounds, with a half finished game of chess eerily sitting on the coffee table
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I'm pretty sure a copy of the picture on the right hand side in photo 1 was left in our house by the previous owners! And the last pic, two backgammon sets! And both looking as if they had been used recently before abandonment. However on closer inspection the one on the table is a Backgammon baord but with chess pieces. I've read the article online and looked at the other pictures and its weird. I would expect more damage / cobwebs / dust etc and also it seems a strange house anyway with things just randomly palced in loactions? Curiouser and curiouser.
 
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hunck said:
This is a weird one - Abandoned house in Kings Langley.

The occupants appear to have left in a hurry in 2016 leaving most of their possessions - dishwasher with washed plates inside, 5 cars, one of which is a Bentley, designer clothes, pianos & much more. The owners were believed to be called Kozlowska, possibly Polish. Makes you wonder what the story is..

One of the rooms has a huge snooker table left abandoned, with the a cue and balls still on the table as if it was left mid-match


The mansion, which has eight bedrooms, six bathrooms and four reception rooms (pictured), is well past its glory days, with five abandoned cars littering the overgrown grounds, including a rusty Bentley


The stunning piano sits in front of the window looking out on to the grounds, with a half finished game of chess eerily sitting on the coffee table
Click to expand...

It's a weird one but the previous occupants were Russian (there is an Orthodox Icon on the Mantle piece) apparently, that they left in a hurry is beyond doubt what I would like to know is, who they were and are they still alive I would think to leave a house like this would make the authorities think that the occupants had come to no good and a full investigation is warranted
 
The strange thing is, if the house had been abandoned since 2016 how come no one was on the case, was someone paying council tax and utility bills? The bailiffs would have been sent in if not, it's been mentioned but who did the property company who own it buy it off?

It does look a bit untidy, and I was wondering if squatters may have found the house well before the Urban Explorer?

I suspect that we may never get the answers, especially if Security Forces have been involved
 
Sort of a Mary Celeste on dry land, or a drug deal went wrong.
 
Robbrent said:
if the house had been abandoned since 2016 how come no one was on the case,
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I have seen a number of urbex-type videos in which abandoned dwellings have lights burning and water running. A lot of the properties are remote and fenced-off, so there may be practical difficulties in disconnecting utilities, even if the bills are unpaid and the companies want to.

In some cases standing-orders or direct debits may continue until accounts are emptied. By definition, these estates are not well-managed in any way.

Urban Explorers usually claim to have a code which deplores vandalism and theft, though they habitually omit the ways in which they gained entry. Once a place has been publicised, however, it may well encourage less scrupulous visitors.

I find abandoned places fascinating, partly for their melancholy atmosphere but equally for the light they throw on patterns of ownership. For a small country, kept in austerity by political choice, the UK turns out to be hiding a hell of a lot behind fences and empty threats about security. :caution:
 
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