Abandoned, Disused & Ruined Places

[Belshazzar]

...

 

[FrKadash]

I don't remember seeing these images posted anywhere, they're from back in 2014, unfortunately from the Mail...

Suspended in time: Eerie photographs capture decay of remote Scottish island homes that relatives can't bear to sell

• Photographs taken by former Buzzcocks drummer John Maher show abandoned homes on remote Scottish islands
• Haunting images taken in Outer Hebrides show properties rotting away as they lie untouched and unchanged
• But homes are often deliberately left exactly as they are following the death of loved ones as a memorial

By Keiligh Baker for MailOnline

Published: 12:54 GMT, 23 December 2014 | Updated: 17:54 GMT, 23 December 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...pture-decay-remote-Scottish-island-homes.html

 

[Mythopoeika]

What a terrible waste.

 

[Mythopoeika]

There are a lot of abandoned homes round Chester - I can't imagine why.

Local industries that have made a lot of lay-offs? Like the local steel plant.

 

[rynner2]

I don't remember seeing these images posted anywhere, they're from back in 2014, unfortunately from the Mail...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...pture-decay-remote-Scottish-island-homes.html

I last visited the outer Hebrides in the 1970s. Even then the amount of garbage left about around old properties was disconcerting. But those properties were still being lived in!

But in a small society there weren't the council provisions then for rubbish collection or recycling that many of us take for granted nowadays. So if your car broke down and couldn't be repaired, it was just left in the yard, and other rubbish was dumped into a nearby depression. Practical, but not aesthetic.

 

[Matthew1034]

Not my pics but I used to work here:



.


Lol at Shillings and pence. Source

 

[Naughty_Felid]

Nope these are sizeable Victorian farmhouses and villas in decent areas. I'll get some photos

I know that in Cheshire's Golden Triangle football players are struggling to sell their WAG mansions.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/footballers-struggling-sell-wag-mansions-5877569

Probably compounded by the likes of Blackburn, Bolton and Wigan being relegated over the last few years.

 

[PeteByrdie]

I spent a few days bobbing about on the Norfolk Broads last week. We moored at St Benet's Abbey on the River Bure, and it gave me a chance to go and see it which I haven't done since I was little, in spite of having spent a lot of time on the Broads. St Benet's Abbey is actually just the ruined gatehouse of an old abbey with a now ruined windmill built into it. Anyway, I'm no photographer, and I only had my phone, but I took snaps. I might return sometime soon with a camera.

 

[Tribble]

Mystery as more than 100 cars found at bottom of abandoned slate mine

This is the lost car graveyard found 200-feet underground in the bottom of an abandoned slate mine.

The mangled wreckage of around 100 cars - dating from the 1970s - were found in the water-filled mine which closed more than half a century ago.

Urban explorers made the discovery after a treacherous trek through the mine at a secret location in North Wales.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mystery-more-100-cars-found-7404018

More photos on the Daily Mail website, but be warned, it's the Daily Mail :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3454287/Mountain-abandoned-cars-70s-abandoned-MINE.html

 

[David Plankton]

On Friday the 19th of February, a friend and I took a trip to Langley Hall, near Witton Gilbert, County Durham.

Built in the early 16thC by Henry Lord Scrope, this was a fortified manor house comprising of four halls enclosing an inner courtyard. A rectangular moat which today consists of a few scattered ponds once surrounded the site. By the 18thC it was in the hands of the Lambtons, the same family famous for the legend of the Lambton Worm, and was being used as a farmhouse. It has deteriorated much in the last two centuries.

Accessing the site was tricky but not impossible thanks to a broken fence. However, there are no paths in this small but dense wood so it was (literally) an uphill struggle through brambles and rhododendrons. We managed to get lost on the way back just a few hundred yards from a farm track and a main road. It was also quite a grey and gloomy day which, along with the complete lack of birdsong gave this ruined mansion and it’s surroundings a very mournful atmosphere.

There were the usual signs of Human activity: empty wine bottles, improvised rope-swings and evidence of fires being lit as well as a little graffiti. The last photo shows pieces of masonry entangled in the roots of a fallen tree.

 

[FrKadash]

This might not quite fit strictly with the title of this thread but it's an interesting article and subject, I'm fascinated by British Brutalism.

New Town Utopia Film Dissects History of Britain's Brutalist Towns
by Patrick Sisson Feb 15, 2016, 4:00p

What does utopia look like a half century later, and how does it change those who call it home? Filmmaker Christopher Smith has been asking himself variations of that question for the last three years while filming New Town Utopia, a documentary about Basildon, a planned English community built in 1948. One of a series of 22 such towns built from scratch in the aftermath of WWII, the town, located 60 miles east of London and home to more than 100,000, was an object of fascination for Smith, who grew up in nearby Benfleet and always felt the city looked a little different than its neighbors. After digging into its origins and history, he discovered a much more nuanced backstory, and how a place meant to be an arts and culture hub is now considered by some to be a concrete jungle with a struggling economy.

http://www.curbed.com/2016/2/15/11028836/new-town-utopia-brutalist-town-planning-england

 

[Spudrick68]

Preston Bus Station is a listed building now. Below are pictures are what was once the biggest bus station in Europe.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=preston bus station&espv=2&biw=1024&bih=667&site=webhp&tbm=isch&imgil=6I8it88yZG5gZM%3A%3BLq7p_omPj2zAsM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.dezeen.com%252F2014%252F09%252F12%252Fbrutalist-buildings-preston-bus-station-by-building-design-partnership%252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=6I8it88yZG5gZM%3A%2CLq7p_omPj2zAsM%2C_&usg=__-n3mFNYAWwg83nYFgB84_4NF-Jg=&ved=0ahUKEwiynvzx243LAhWK2xoKHf9gAbEQyjcIPQ&ei=4jnMVrKlGYq3a__BhYgL#imgrc=6I8it88yZG5gZM:

 

[David Plankton]

Preston Bus Station is a listed building now.

Built by Ove Arup and Partners. There's a bust of Sir Ove Arup at the beginning of Kingsgate Bridge in Durham, which he designed. He was also responsible for Dunelm House which stands adjacent and ties in nicely with the Brutalist link above.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham_Students'_Union

 

[FrKadash]

Abandoned Checkpoints: Photographer documents Europe's forgotten borders
15th January in Photography

With everything that's been happening in Europe lately and the EU struggling to cope with the biggest wave of migrants and refugees its ever known, it's interesting to discover Polish photographer Josef Schulz's Übergang series – meaning Crossing – which explores abandoned military checkpoints across the continent.

Uncovering every corner of Europe, Schultz digitally fades the background surrounding each redundant station as though they are shrouded in fog, allowing these forgotten borders to stand out and make an impact.

http://www.creativeboom.com/photogr...ropes-forgotten-borders/#.Vp9FAn2SwEl.twitter

 

[captain_bats]

On Friday the 19th of February, a friend and I took a trip to Langley Hall, near Witton Gilbert, County Durham.

Built in the early 16thC by Henry Lord Scrope, this was a fortified manor house comprising of four halls enclosing an inner courtyard. A rectangular moat which today consists of a few scattered ponds once surrounded the site. By the 18thC it was in the hands of the Lambtons, the same family famous for the legend of the Lambton Worm, and was being used as a farmhouse. It has deteriorated much in the last two centuries.

Accessing the site was tricky but not impossible thanks to a broken fence. However, there are no paths in this small but dense wood so it was (literally) an uphill struggle through brambles and rhododendrons. We managed to get lost on the way back just a few hundred yards from a farm track and a main road. It was also quite a grey and gloomy day which, along with the complete lack of birdsong gave this ruined mansion and it’s surroundings a very mournful atmosphere.

There were the usual signs of Human activity: empty wine bottles, improvised rope-swings and evidence of fires being lit as well as a little graffiti. The last photo shows pieces of masonry entangled in the roots of a fallen tree.
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Oh, wow. I camped out there a few times with friends back in 2003/04.

My friend, who lived in nearby Langley Park, told us there was an urban (rural?) legend of a "six-fingered witch" because of a six-fingered hand print on some of the masonry there. Expecting to see a spooky hand print, perhaps left through supernatural means, I was disappointed instead to see a crudely carved hand shape, the extra finger looking to me to be as a result of the carver getting carried away and/or drunk, rather than anything intentional; like when you sometimes see an aborted attempt at a swastika spraypainted in an underpass by incompetent hooligans.

When we first got to the site, we were somewhat alarmed to find a dismembered crow, or jackdaw, it's head tied to a twig that was shoved into a crack in the wall. Despite this promising start, nothing spooky happened during any of our stays. I don't know if the witch thing was an actual legend or just something made up by bored teenagers in the recent past.

Did you see the hand shape? If memory serves it was next to one of the gaps in the wall big enough to walk through (presumably a former doorway) - I think maybe the bit in your 5th picture.

 

[David Plankton]

Did you see the hand shape? If memory serves it was next to one of the gaps in the wall big enough to walk through (presumably a former doorway) - I think maybe the bit in your 5th picture

No, I didn't. I hadn't heard of this place until a few weeks ago despite living quite close by, so I wasn't aware of any local legends. If I had noticed it I would definitely taken a picture. No evidence of Corvicide either, thankfully.

 

[Cochise]

This might not quite fit strictly with the title of this thread but it's an interesting article and subject, I'm fascinated by British Brutalism.



http://www.curbed.com/2016/2/15/11028836/new-town-utopia-brutalist-town-planning-england

If Basildon was 60 miles east of London it would be in the North Sea.

And if it was built in 1948 how come most people didn't notice it until about 1960? It might have been conceived in 1948.

Wonder how good the rest of his research is?

 

[FrKadash]

Inside the abandoned schoolhouses of rural Ireland
Archaeologist Enda O’Flaherty’s photography project captures the ruins of old national schools left dotted across the Irish countryside.

TABLES AND CHAIRS lie empty in disused national schools across the country, covered in rust and dust as branches twist in through nearby windows.
Cork-based archaeologist Enda O’Flahety documents what remains of the desolate buildings in a photography project aimed at capturing the long decline of rural Ireland.
O’Flaherty began the project last year after coming upon an abandoned schoolhouse during a work field trip and realising that few modern visual records of such buildings exist.

http://www.thejournal.ie/photos-abandoned-irish-national-schools-2637611-Mar2016/

 

[David Plankton]

Lose Yourself in this Atlas of the World's Lost Cities
According to French author Aude de Tocqueville, cities are like mortal beings. They are born, they rise up and they undergo various cycles before dying and being resurrected again. Lost cities that continue to stand long past their glory days are particularly poignant.
In Tocqueville's new book, Atlas of Lost Cities: A Travel Guide to Abandoned and Forsaken Destinations, she explores several haunting abandoned cities across four continents. The Atlas features well-known lost cities like Pompeii and Angkor, but also explores lesser-known, but similarly majestic places.
The book, which comes out on April 5, 2016, intends to immerse readers in the unique charms of every city it features. Each destination is accompanied by an account of its history and mythology, and a beautifully detailed illustration by Karin Doering-Froger. Below, discover how some of these lost cities withstood the tests of time.


http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/lose-yourself-in-this-atlas-of-the-worlds-lost-cities

 

[sherbetbizarre]

A half-built futuristic ‘eco-city’ is sitting abandoned in the Arabian Desert

As of now, the city sits mostly empty — only around 300 people live there, and the completion date has been pushed back to 2030.

http://www.techinsider.io/masdar-city-photos-of-abu-dhabis-green-city-in-the-arabian-desert-2016-7

 

[OneWingedBird]

That island of dolls give me the heeby geebies!

 

[Graylien]

From the Mirror: Photos of abandoned houses on the Hebrides. Taken by the drummer from The Buzzcocks, no less!

 

[Tribble]

While on our little holiday in the Azores, we came upon an interesting building - the Hotel Monte Palace. Turns out, there's loads of articles written about it showing it at its prime (1989) and what it looks like now.

http://ragstocouture.com/abandoned-hotel-in-the-azores-checking-in-to-the-monte-palace/

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hotel-monte-palace

The building was apparently guarded for quite a few years but is now abandoned and open to curious tourists and vandals. Walking in, I was reminded of the post-apocalyptic atmosphere of the Fallout games - a ruined shell of what was once a beautiful building, abandoned to the elements. Anything of value has been stripped out. It's dangerous as hell though - no handrails on the spiral staircase, open liftshafts, collapsing roof, rubble everywhere - but people still explore it and climb up to the roof for the view. And it's a great view. Looking one way, you get to see the beautiful twin lakes in a volcanic crater, and looking the other way you can see the Atlantic Ocean. Imagine waking up and opening the curtains to this (I took this from one of the balconies) :

Sadly, it was built when the Azores tourist industry was in its infancy, amongst its flaws - a terribly over-ambitious project built at the wrong time and wrong place. Given the sturdiness of the concrete shell, it'll be there for a very long time if nobody buys the site and develops it. And it does have potential - tourism is on the up and the point is popular with sightseers (for obvious reasons). Even if they didn't build a hotel, they could certainly develop shops, restaurants and decent parking up there.

A curious thing about the Azores - even in Ponta Delgada, the biggest city, there are ruined buildings - not just run-down, but ruined, collapsed husks of buildings - alongside buildings in use.

e.g.

 

[Graylien]

The Ghost Village of Tyneham, Dorset. The village was taken over by the army in 1943 for troops training and has remained in their hands ever since. Apparently it's open to the public at weekends, if anyone lives near and fancies a recce.

 

[Draheste]

Here is a abandoned hotel in a small spa town in the middle of the Pyrenees, Les Eaux-Bonnes. I know the area quite well and went to les Eaux Bonnes more that 30 years ago. It welcomed royalties from all over, in its heydays at the end of XIX and early XXth Centuries. It has been abandonned for quite a while, unfortunately.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=les eaux bonnes hotel des princes&espv=2&biw=931&bih=594&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjn-sGXk9_OAhUCuhoKHbIpDUoQ_AUICCgD

And another link, but all in French:

http://onvqf.over-blog.com/2014/09/hotel-des-princes-eaux-bonnes-pyrenees-atlantiques-64-a.html

 

[Swifty]

Nobody knew why an entire town called Oradour Sur Glane was the scene of a mass massacre 4 days after the D-Day invasion .. theories include that the Nazis thought it was a stronghold for underground resistance fighters but mixed up the name of the town with a similar sounding named town nearby that actually was a stronghold for underground resistance fighters .. all of the men, women and children were rounded up and executed bar 2 escapees. When President Gaul learned of this atrocity, he ordered that the town should remain frozen in time so that people would never forget what happened there. A new Oradour Sur Glane has been built next to it in a similar spirit to the new tower that has replaced The World Trade Centre ..

It's a very moving place to visit, peoples belongs have been left strewn as they were within the ruins after the Nazis set light to the town , bikes still lean against walls, cars remain parked on the streets ..

 

[JamesWhitehead]

"Tadzio, Tadzio . . . Erk!" Sorry, I was distracted by the Mahler there.






Oradour really needs Olivier's voice:

"Down this road, on a summer day in 1944 ... The soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community which had lived for a thousand years ... was dead.

"This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road ... and they were driven ... into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then . . . they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle.

"They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, in China, in a World at War . . . "

After 26 weeks, we came back to Oradour. May they Rest in Peace!

 

[Swifty]

"Tadzio, Tadzio . . . Erk!" Sorry, I was distracted by the Mahler there.






Oradour really needs Olivier's voice:

"Down this road, on a summer day in 1944 ... The soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community which had lived for a thousand years ... was dead.

"This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road ... and they were driven ... into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then . . . they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle.

"They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, in China, in a World at War . . . "

After 26 weeks, we came back to Oradour. May they Rest in Peace!

The women and kids were rounded up inside the church and killed there after the men had been shot.. the heat was so intense that the church bell melted although someone was able to scramble out of a window, the melted bell remains inside the church as well as machine gun bullet holes inside the church's walls. Apparently the Nazis went on the piss after killing everyone to celebrate before setting fire to the buildings.

 

[Draheste]

Long ago, I went there with my parents. Poignant is a vain word, to put it mildly. Only a child survived, I heard that his mum told him to run away in the cornfields. I didn't know about the piss and the Nazis. I remember seeing signs saying the Nazis did this, not the Germans regular army. Yesterday, while researching for a story I just wrote, I read somewhere that there were about 3000 Germans Resistants against Nazism in France. Talking of Coincidences...

 

[Mythopoeika]

I didn't know about the piss and the Nazis.

Sorry, I'm figuring that English isn't your main language...'on the piss' here means they got drunk.