Miscellany 2022-
Time has rather got on top of me, I don't get out as much as I used to.
More derelict places found on my travels around the UK; factories, farms, quarries, barns and everything else.
See 2004-14 - 2015-21
Ridham Marshes, Kent, Summer 2025
Part of a once-extensive system of standard- and narrow gauge lines serving Ridham Dock and Kemsley Paper Mills
Supposedly the line here is not officially closed but mothballed, with an operational coloured light signal
at the main line south of Swale station, although it would take a gargantuan effort to for trains to run again. | |
Elm Tree Inn, Minster-on-Sea, Isle of Sheppey, May 2025
The Elm Tree was previously a beer house called the Greyhound. It was renamed the Elm Tree some time between 1960 and
1975, the name being taken from the number of elm trees that once lined the road. The pub closed c.2020 and
has been completely stripped. Apparently there are plans to convert it into flats, assuming it doesn't fall down first...
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County Highways Depot, Broadbridge Heath, Sussex, Easter 2025
This regional maintenance depot was built in the 1970s on the site of a redundant army camp. It was declared surplus to requirements in 2018 and closed shortly afterwards. | |
Cliffe Marshes, Kent, September 2024
This pontoon excavator dug clay-silt from the marshes for use in the nearby
Alpha Cement Works. It has been abandoned since the plant closed in 1970.
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Near Horley, Surrey, Summer 2024
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Derelict house near Bletchingley, Surrey, August 2023.
I found this house by accident after losing the public footpath near Steners Hill - battled through thicket and neglected pasture choked with thistles and tripwire brambles to regain the path and there it was in a hollow beside an old farm track. Research shows that it is the last remnant of a farm cut in two by the building of the motorway in 1972 and it must have been abandoned shortly afterwards. | |
Disused nurseries, Bury, Sussex, June 2023
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Pendell Anti-Aircraft Operations Room, 2022
A defended Anti-Aicraft Operations Room (AAOR) near Merstham, built in 1951 to
command the several heavy gun batteries of the London South Gun-Defended Area of the national
anti-aircraft defence scheme, codenamed "Nucleus". One of the batteries survived until recently at
Worms Heath near Warlingham. After being
rendered obsolete by modern missile systems, it became the Metropolitan Police's Southern War HQ,
in which capacity it served until 1991. The lower storey is now completely flooded. | |
Smallholding, Mannings Heath, Sussex, 2022
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Disused care home, Crawley, 2022
A large Edwardian villa which has been extended by a rambling assortment of low-rise corridors and rooms into a 40-bed elderly care facility. The home was evacuated due to serious flooding from the neighbouring River Mole on Christmas Eve 2013 and never re-opened. | |
Disused sewage works, Broadbridge Heath, Sussex, November 2023
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Downlands Park Care Home, Haywards Heath, Sussex, Spring 2023
A rambling Victorian residence originally called Parkfield. In the early 1900s the house became a private boys' preparatory school, which operated for nearly 70 years, but in 1974 was acquired by Downlands College, a specialist school for children with severe dyslexia and dysgraphia. Downlands closed in 1985 as result of changes in local authority funding for special schools and the building was converted into a 46-bed care home. It was destroyed by a deliberate fire in January 2023. | |
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