A clandestine photographer with a fascination for abandoned buildings has shared his extraordinary pictures of a deserted farmhouse that’s like an intriguing 20th century time capsule.
When urban explorer Kyle “Urbex” investigated the long neglected property in Little Hereford, Hertfordshire, last month he found the place stuffed full of haunting personal possessions, including piles of cobweb-covered, grimy letters.
The fascinating chaotic scenes he captured on camera look like someone stepped out for a walk one day several decades ago and never came back for some reason, leaving the place to slowly rot.
Spooky portraits and eerie landscape paintings stare from the walls of the once well-loved and cosy home village home.
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Its faded and grubby decor includes peeling paint and old-fashioned flowery wallpaper, The Sun reported.
There are candlesticks ready to light over the fireplace, a sewing machine threaded with cotton, and an old piano with sheet music ready to play.
The kitchen appears to be the hub of the home and hanging up in there Kyle discovered a calendar dated 1988.
With an ancient old range, the room is jam-packed with jars and packets, dirty plates and cutlery, with paperwork strewn over every available surface.
On top of the dirt soaked Beko electric cooker, a saucepan and old kettles are clearly well past their sell-by dates.
The floor is plastered in refuse, including old plastic milk bottles filled with a dark liquid that Kyle thinks is tractor oil.
The 25-year-old from Leeds, who prefers to maintain his anonymity, has visited and photographed more than 400 deserted and derelict buildings since taking up his exploring hobby in 2020.
He was drawn to the neglected farm after spotting it on a Facebook page.
Stepping through the front garden, he found the doors and windows of the house boarded up, but he established a way inside and began to look around.
Kyle said: “When I got there I could tell it was subject to natural decay. I had to stay mainly downstairs because parts had fallen in upstairs.
“The first living room I came to, I could sense it was from the 1960s or 1970s because of the retro wallpaper and old-style burner for a fireplace.”
Searching through the mountains of age-old correspondence, he could find no clues about the identity of the long lost owners, only letters addressed to “the homeowner”.
Kyle found evidence of more recent parties at the abandoned property, with empty beer bottles and carrier bags of rubbish scattered around, but no signs of anyone having lived there for a very long time.
He said: “In these houses you feel quite sad in a way, it is abandoned and frozen in time.
“We don’t know when it was vacated or who lived there but someone’s memories are still there.
“The living room had a piano that once would have been played daily - it’s now left rotting away.
“For some reason, whatever that is, someone upped and left, and never came back.”
