Type Index
By Name : By County
Smaller sites are listed in the alphabetical index
AGRI. :
COMM’S :
DEFENCE :
DOMEST. :
HOSP’LS :
INDUST. :
LEISURE :
RELIG. :
SCHOOLS :
SCIENCE :
TRANS.
A wide variety of building types become redundant over time with the changing needs of society. Over the last century changes in technology, economy, war and society have left scores of redundant buildings in their wake. Most are swiftly replaced by new structures that better meet our needs, but many remain because they are too remote, too costly or too valuable to remove. Please be aware that because some sites have been used for multiple purposes, they will appear in more than one category.
AGRICULTURAL
 | Graylands Farm
A 19th Century dairy farm in the Sussex Weald. The complex comprised a row of cottages, cowsheds, barns, stabling and later cattle stalls, all since converted to housing.
(Horsham, West Sussex: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Hang Man Barn
This gaunt, near-skeletal barn has, according to legend, a gruesome history as the place of execution for those condemned to death.
(Itchingfield, West Sussex: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 | Fferm Tan-y-Foel
An abandoned hill-farmhouse in an advanced state of decay surrounded by semi-derelict farm buildings.
(Cwmann, Carmarthenshire). |  |
Back to top
COMMUNICATIONS
 |
Leswidden Radio Station
A small hut on a Cornish moor with a small but significant part in the history of global communications, Telstar and the world's first transatlantic satellite broadcast.
(St. Just, Cornwall: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Oakwood Hill Radio Beacon
A former VHF omnidirectional radio range site built in the 1960s to guide air traffic approaching Gatwick
(Oakwood Hill, Surrey: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Tatsfield B.B.C. Receiving Station
A former BBC technical station which monitored domestic and foreign broadcasts and in 1957 was the first place in Britain to recieve signals from the Russian satellite Sputnik I.
(Tatsfield, Surrey). |  |
Back to top
DEFENCE
 |
The Aeroplane Graveyard
A collection of Cold War jets and aviation relics ranging in age from the 1960s to the early 1990s, slowly decaying in a Sussex copse.
(Faygate).
|  |
 | Arun G. H. Q. Stop Line
This WWII anti-invasion stop line consisted of anti-tank obstacles, traps, pillboxes and other defences. This is a list with photographs and descriptions of the defences on the stretch of the line between Lower Beeding and Slinfold.
(Horsham, West Sussex). |  |
 |
Berwick Wood Fuel Depot
Part of a vast underground storage facility for aviation fuel, built in the 1940s and still partly in use for defence aviation supply.
(Gloucestershire, Hallen: opens in pop-out). |  |
 | Cuckmere Haven Anti-Invasion Defences
Second World War anti-infantry pillboxes, gun emplacements, anti-tank obstacles, ditches, pillboxes and support buildings built to guard against anticipated Nazi landings at Cuckmere Haven.
(Westdean, East Sussex). |  |
 |
Horsham U.K.W.M.O. Monitoring Post
A small bunker built in the 1960s to be used by a team of volunteers as a base from which to monitor blast effects and fallout patterns and to warn the public and local authorities of immediate danger in the event of a nuclear attack.
(Horsham, West Sussex: Opens in pop-out) |  |
 |
Llanon U.K.W.M.O. Monitoring Post
A bunker built in the late '50s to be used by a team of volunteers to monitor blast effects and fallout patterns in the event of a nuclear attack.
(Llanon, Cardiganshire). |  |
 |
Igloo 2 H.A.A. Battery
An anti-aircraft gun site built in the early years of the Cold War to shoot down enemy bombers, part of the Igloo scheme of air defences.
(Withheld, Surrey). |  |
 |
Pound's Naval Scrapyard
Portsmouth's famous shipbreakers, littered with the remains of various naval craft spanning more than a century.
(Tipner, Hampshire: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Purdown: Bristol No. 6 H.A.A. Battery
The bunkers, magazines and gun mounts of Purdown 'Percy' Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery now stand overgrown in the shadow of Purdown BT Tower but were once an integral part of Bristol's defences against air raids.
(Lockleaze, Bristol). |  |
 |
R.A.F. Tangmere
The remains of a large Battle of Britain airfield closed in 1970, slowly disappearing underneath housing estates and businesses.
(Tangmere, West Sussex: Opens in pop-out). |  |
Back to top
DOMESTIC
.JPG) |
Baynards Brickworks
In 1937 the Steetley Chemical Co. began operations at Baynards making batteries and pesticides. Activity on site ceased in 2005 leaving 80 acres of heavily toxic wasteland incorporating a derelict brickworks, chemical laboratories, decontamination plant and a pair of Mid-Victorian cottages standing empty.
(Cranleigh, Surrey).
|  |
 | Beedingwood
A remarkable house built in 1876 for philanthropic bacon merchant Thomas Denny. It later became part of a pioneering rehabilitation hospital for people with stress-related mental disorders. It closed in 1983 and burned down in 2007 after these photographs were taken.
(Colgate, West Sussex). |  |
 |
Capel Blaencaron
An isolated Calvinistic Methodist chapel and parsonage by the side of a mountain road. Now converted to a house.
(Tregaron, Cardiganshire). |  |
 |
Bronwydd
A gothic fantasy of a mansion designed in the 1850s by R. K. Penson for the Baronets Lloyd of Bronwydd and abandoned to the elements after the war.
(Llangynllo, Cardiganshire). |  |
 |
Ditsworthy
An arson-ravaged Victorian villa in the shadow of Gatwick Airport.
(Lowfield Heath, West Sussex: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Dorking General Hospital Nurses' Home
Disused nurses' residences on an operational hospital campus including the badly fire damaged former home of the late 19th Century intellectual C.G.B. Allen. Since demolished
(Dorking, Surrey: Opens in pop-out)
|  |
 |
Hollywood Lodge
A badly fire-damaged Georgian mansion latterly used as a hospital annexe and care home, situated within the Epsom Cluster of Mental Hospitals.
(Epsom, Surrey). |  |
 |
Longhurst Lodge
A derelict Elizabethan Revival keeper's cottage which stands at the start of an abandoned coachroad leading up to the site of a mansion destroyed by fire in 1979. Now being restored.
(Cranleigh, Surrey). |  |
 |
Morfa Uchaf
The outside of this abandoned cottage will be familiar to anyone who travels regularly on the Coast Road towards Aberystwyth. The interior reveals a typical open-plan Welsh longhouse
(Llanon, Cardiganshire: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Oddstones
A case of a much-vandalised cottage and some interesting finds in sheds. Now demolished
(Pulborough, West Sussex: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Old Buck's Head
A c.16th century cottage whose listing application was thrown out because of ugly 1970s extensions. It was demolished in 2006 to make way for an executive mansion.
(Lower Beeding, West Sussex). |  |
 |
Peterwell
The ruined mansion home of a despotic squire who is supposed to have shot himself having amassed huge gambling debts.
(Lampeter, Cardiganshire: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Plas-y-Gwernant
The dynamited ruins of a fine Welsh Georgian mansion deemed too expensive to maintain, now partly reoccupied.
(Troedyraur, Cardiganshire: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Pseudonymous Mill
An eighteenth century flour mill and attatched house extended in 1914. Last used by an agricultural merchant's business, it was bought by developers in 2007 it was briefly abandoned mid-conversion but work has now resumed.
(Undisclosed). |  |
 |
Tangley Place
A Victorian mansion and later laboratories used by the M.A.F.F. as a field station for animal testing. Closed in 1996, devastated by arson and since demolished.
(Worplesdon, Surrey). |  |
| | Fferm Tan-y-Foel
An abandoned hill-farmhouse in an advanced state of decay surrounded by semi-derelict farm buildings.
(Cwmann, Cardiganshire). | |
 |
Wassell Mill House
A Georgian miller's cottage and former schoolmistress' residence with some interesting original features. Demolished in 2012.
(Ebernoe, Sussex; opens in new window). |  |
 |
West Horsham
The railway boom town that never was: A large tract of derelict land comprising the overgrown platforms of Christ's Hospital Station, a disused barn, an old railway cutting and two derelict cottages.
(Christ's Hospital, Sussex).
|  |
Back to top
HOSPITALS
 |
Barrow Hospital
The remains of the second Bristol City mental hospital, built to the then progressive colony plan. Opened in 1939, plans for expansion were interrupted by the war and never resumed.
It latterly suffered from poor management and lack of facilities and was closed in 2006 after being named 'Britain's dirtiest hospital'.
(Barrow Gurney, Somerset). |  |
| | Beedingwood
A remarkable house built in 1876 for philanthropic bacon merchant Thomas Denny. It later became part of a pioneering rehabilitation hospital for people with stress-related mental disorders. It closed in 1983 and burned down in 2007 after these photographs were taken.
(Colgate, West Sussex). | |
| |
Dorking General Hospital Nurses' Home
Disused nurses' residences on an operational hospital campus including the badly fire damaged former home of the late 19th Century intellectual C.G.B. Allen. Since demolished
(Opens in pop-out)
| |
 |
The Epsom Cluster
A photographic record and history charting the rise, decline, abandonment and redevelopment of the West Park, St. Ebba's, Horton, Long Grove and the Manor; the five great Edwardian hospitals and asylums which made up the 'Epsom Cluster'.
(Epsom, Surrey). |  |
 |
Graylingwell Hospital
The former West Sussex Asylum was opened in 1897 and served the population of West Sussex for over a century before closing in 2003.
(Chichester). |  |
| |
Hollywood Lodge
A badly fire-damaged Georgian mansion latterly used as a hospital annexe and care home, situated within the Epsom Cluster of Mental Hospitals.
(Epsom, Surrey). | |
 |
Mid Wales Hospital
A large turn-of-the-century psychiatric institution nestled amidst the Brecon Beacons and slowly rotting from the top down after conversion plans fell through in 2008.
(Talgarth, Brecknockshire). |  |
 |
Netherne Hospital
Netherne Hospital opened in 1909 as the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum, intended for 960 of the county's mentally ill. It closed in 1994 and has now largely been redeveloped.
(Hooley, Surrey: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 | Priory Street Hospital
A derelict hospital in the centre of Carmarthen, founded in 1846 by voluntary contribution as a pauper infirmary and closed in 1996.
(Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire). |  |
Back to top
INDUSTRIAL
| |
Baynards Brickworks
In 1937 the Steetley Chemical Co. began operations at Baynards making batteries and pesticides. Activity on site ceased in 2005 leaving 80 acres of heavily toxic wasteland incorporating a derelict brickworks, chemical laboratories, decontamination plant and a pair of Mid-Victorian cottages standing empty.
(Cranleigh, Surrey).
| |
 |
Box Hill Quarries
A complex site comprising two chalk quarries with the remains of kilns, limeworks and tramways. One of the quarries became a narrow-gauge railway museum in the 1960s, but both have now fallen into decay.
(Brockham & Betchworth, Surrey). |  |
 |
Buckland Sand and Silica Co.
A sand processing plant and quarry founded in 1925 to produce high-quality sands for the glass industry which closed in 1990 after a buyout .
(Buckland, Surrey: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
"C" Woollen Mill
A small but industrious mid-Victorian Welsh woollen mill which once sent products all over Britain. In 1962 the mill closed for the last time and has been frozen in time ever since.
(Undisclosed). |  |
 | Cocking Limeworks
After more than a century of lime production, Cocking Limeworks closed in 1999. Most of the buildings, machinery and heavy plant left behind are now being reclaimed by nature.
(Cocking, West Sussex). |  |
 | Cwmystwyth Lead and Zinc Mines
An extensive mining landscape littered with the shafts, adits, tips and buildings of a lead and zinc mining concern that collapsed in 1921.
(Cwmystwyth, Cardiganshire). |  |
 |
Dorking Greystone Lime Co., Betchworth Works
One of the iconic chalk quarries of the Boxhill Ridge, operational between 1867 and 1969 and with many of the original buildings still remaining in a derelict state.
(Betchworth, Surrey: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Ebernoe Common Brick & Tile Works
The restored remains of a small 18th century brickworks including kiln, pits and moulding shed on Ebernoe Common.
(Ebernoe, West Sussex).
|  |
 | Esgair-Mwn Lead and Zinc Mines
The small concern that was Ceredigion's last metal mine reprocessed spoil tips from an earlier leadmining operation for previously discarded zinc until the 1950s. Today much still remains, including the ore dressing mill, mine office, shafts, incline and tramways.
(Pontrhydfendigaid, Cardiganshire).
|  |
 |
Ewhurst Brick Works
Established in the 1920s and closed in the 1980s, this disused brickworks has found use as a habitat, a playground, a blank canvas and a fishery.
(Ellen's Green, Surrey). |  |
 | Kingsfold Nursery
A small independent plant nursery which formerly supplied municipal flower beds. Also the first place the author ever worked.
(Kingsfold, West Sussex: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Laporte Earths
A hellish maze of conveyors, silos, calciners, mills and pipes used to produce granular fuller's earth for the chemical industry and for common cat litter. Closed in 1997, the site also includes offices, laboratories and a working men's club.
(Redhill, Surrey).
|  |
 |
Leswidden China Clay Works
An extensive complex of settling tanks, holding containers, kilns and flues used to wash and process china clay until the 1920s.
(St. Just, Cornwall). |  |
.JPG) |
Nutbourne Brickworks
A substantial 1930s brickworks site abandoned by its last operator over ten years ago. The works comprise sheds, workshops, offices and factory buildings, soon to be demolished to make way for houses.
(Hambledon, Surrey). | .JPG) |
 |
Pont Llanio Dairy
A co-operative dairy plant which opened in the 1930s to handle milk from across Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire
(Llanio, Cardiganshire: Opens in pop-out). |  |
| |
Pseudonymous Mill
An eighteenth century flour mill and attatched house extended in 1914. Last used by an agricultural merchant's business. Bought by developers in 2007, it has apparently been abandoned mid-conversion.
(Undisclosed). | |
 |
Stormy Limeworks
A blue lias quarry and limeworks which fed the iron and steel works nearby with lime for the blast furnace.
(Pyle, Glamorgan: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Swallow's Tiles Ltd.
A well-preserved small-scale Victorian tile and terra-cotta works which produced handmade clay tiles in the traditional way until forced to close in 2008.
(Cranleigh, Surrey). |  |
Back to top
LEISURE
 |
Devil's Bridge Scout Camp
A small village of wooden huts built in the woods where generations of children once holidayed
(Pontarfynach, Cardiganshire: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Portsmouth Greyhound Stadium
An iconic 1930s dog-racing track that closed in 2010, mid season, to make way for an already ailing redevelopment initiative which is turning Tipner into a ghost town. Now being fast destroyed by vandals.
(Tipner, Hampshire). |  |
 |
St. Athan Boys' Village
The ruins of a holiday camp established in the 1920s by philanthropic industrialist Lord Davies of Llandinam for the sons of miners in his collieries.
(West Aberthaw, Glamorgan). |  |
Back to top
RELIGIOUS
| |
Capel Blaencaron
An isolated Calvinistic Methodist chapel and parsonage by the side of a mountain road.
(Tregaron, Cardiganshire). | |
 |
Ysgol Sul Blaenwyre
A Calvinistic Methodist school-chapel on an isolated mountain road in rural Wales
(Llanrhystud, Cardiganshire: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
The Convent of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
A Victorian convent and grounds vacated by the community of carmelite nuns in 1994, with a once beautiful chapel devastated by deliberate fire in 2009.
(Undisclosed). |  |
 |
Kingswood Wesleyan Chapel
A roofless Victorian chapel in the suburbs of Bristol, badly damaged by fire and neglect.
(Kingswood, Gloucester). |  |
 |
Olmarch School
An old Congregationalist chapel and schoolroom hidden in the bushes beside a busy road.
(Olmarch, Cardiganshire: Opens in pop-out). |  |
 |
Rowhook School
A long disused single-room Sussex schoolhouse later used as a mission room. Subject of an ultimately pointless legal battle in the 1980s, it now stands empty and decaying.
(Rowhook, West Sussex). |  |
 |
St. Mary of Pity
A much vandalised 1960s Roman Catholic church and presbytery closed in 2003 and still containing much of the paperwork, furniture and service sheets from when they were last used.
(Burpham, Surrey). |  |
 |
St. Matthew's Mission Church
A small church established as a mission of Llanbadarn Fawr in 1871 and closed at an unknown date within the last 15 years. Currently awaiting conversion to a 4 bedroom house.
(Goginan, Cardiganshire). |  |
 |
Welsh Martyrs' Church
A recently derelict Roman Catholic church in the modernist style still filled with the parahenalia of church life and liturgy.
(Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire). |  |
 |
Whitefield's Tabernacle
An historic nonconformist church established by Methodist pioneers George Whitefield and John Cennick in 1741 and the large Victorian Gothic church built to replace it.
(Kingswood, Gloucestershire). |  |
Back to top
SCHOLASTIC
| |
Ysgol Sul Blaenwyre
A Calvinistic Methodist school-chapel on an isolated mountain road in rural Wales
(Llanrhystud, Cardiganshire: Opens in pop-out). | |
 | Chichester High School for Girls
The redundant campus of a still active school which was founded here in 1908. Latterly used as a teacher training centre, it is now derelict and partly inhabited by homeless people and drug users.
(Chichester, West Sussex). |  |
 |
Ysgoldy Gogoyan
A long-closed but well-preserved single room schoolhouse at the centre of a small hamlet in the Teifi Valley.
(Llanfair Clydogau, Cardiganshire; Opens in pop-out). |  |
| |
Olmarch School
An old Congregationalist chapel and schoolroom hidden in the bushes beside a busy road.
(Olmarch, Cardiganshire: Opens in pop-out). | |
| |
Rowhook School
A long disused single-room Sussex schoolhouse later used as a mission room. Subject of an ultimately pointless legal battle in the 1980s, it now stands empty and decaying.
(Rowhook, West Sussex). | |
 |
Silian National School
A decaying village schoolhouse closed in the 1970s. Latterly used as a village hall, until 2007 it housed a WWII roll of honour.
(Silian, Cardiganshire). |  |
Back to top
SCIENTIFIC
| |
Tangley Place
A Victorian mansion and later laboratories used by the M.A.F.F. as a field station for animal testing. Closed in 1996 and now all but destoyed by arson. Since demolished.
(Worplesdon, Surrey). | |
Back to top
TRANSPORT
 |
Derry Ormond Halt (M. & M. R.)
A small but well-preserved Great Western Railway halt on the dismantled Carmarthen and Aberystwyth line.
(Betws Bledrws, Cardiganshire). |  |
 |
Trecastle Services & Greystones Motel
An abandoned and trashed motel and restaurant complex in South Wales last occupied by protesters against the burying of diseased sheep carcasses in the area in 2001.
(Llywel, Brecknockshire). |  |
| |
West Horsham
The railway boom town that never was: A large tract of derelict land comprising the overgrown platforms of Christ's Hospital Station, a disused barn, an old railway cutting and two derelict cottages.
(Christ's Hospital).
| |
 |
Weyhill Services
East- and Westbound services on the A303 (T) closed after a devastating fire in 2004.
(Weyhill, Hampshire: Opens in pop-out). |  |
Back to top
Home..
| |
Derelict Miscellany. Website & content Copyright D. A. Gregory 2005-Present unless stated to be otherwise.
|
|
