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Weird Island: Weird Places, People and Animals in Britain

Abandoned Places

Not everywhere remains inhabited or in use forever. Once mighty fortresses are ground into blocks and mortar by the passage of centuries and become the abode of naught more than crows. Teeming villages pass into history, abandoned in response to plague or the vicissitudes of demographics.

More recently, the acceleration of our culture away from industry has left behind a legacy of crumbling ruins - mills, tunnels and a ghostly rail network.

While many of these are bordered off and "protected" by trusts and landowners, some are still accessible to the intrepid.
  • The Humber Forts
    The Humber Forts are two huge concrete fortifications, built during the First Word War to protect the Humber - and the c
  • Wharram le Percy
    This beautiful medieval village was abandoned in the 16th century and remains the best known and possibly best-preserved
  • St. Thomas-a-Beckett Church, Heptonstall
    This ancient church - parts of which date back to the middle of the 13th century - was reduced to ruins during a storm i
  • Harewood Castle
    If you have ever driven along the A61 from Harewood towards Harrogate in the winter or early spring, you may have notice
  • Sandal Castle
    Today little more than a hillock adorned with crumbling fragments of masonry, Sandal Castle was once a strategical
  • Whitby Abbey
    Whitby Abbey's fame rests today largely thanks to the role it played in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Brooding over the t
  • Abraham Ormerod Medical Centre, Todmorden
    Now a ruined shell, the Abraham Ormerod Medical Centre was gifted to the town of Pontefract by the eponymous mill owner
  • Burlington: Central Government War Headquarters
    Following the end of World War II and the calamitous descent of the Iron Curtain across Eastern Europe, Britain wa
  • Maunsell Sea Forts
    With Great Britain facing threats from both air and sea during World War II, many defensive plans were devised - among t
  • HM Fort Roughs: The Principality of Sealand
    Among the flat, mournful coastal seas around Felixstowe and the mouldering remains of the Maunsell sea forts is one of B