We visited Wharren Percy in January.
It's the site of a 'deserted' medieval village and it's mysteries were studied for decades by the world's archeologists.
It's owned by English Heritage now. It's a remote spot next to a tiny modern hamlet set in the gentle curves of the misty Yorkshire Wolds, a landscape out of time.
In the churchyard they found evidence of trepanning!
It reminded me of somewhere Jon Pertwee might have landed in the TARDIS, a spooky, almost mystical place.
Essentially it's only the lay-out of the village visible now, foundations from the Middle Ages, and the church ruin.
The team of diggers slept in a farmhouse.
It would have made a good episode for Dr.Who, with the dig team in the Sixties.
On the woodland path leading to the site are ruins of a much later and towering Victorian water mill.
The murky leafy scene immediately made me think of Black Sabbath's eponymous debut LP cover!
There's even a track called Sleeping Village!
Have you visited a deserted place?
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PS. Excuse the hot links, its blogger's daft idea!
Plenty of deserted buildings in Shipley in the late '60s, early '70s Woodsy. Mostly old mills and factories.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid, I got into several. Not breaking in, just 'getting' in, in a way that would be impossible now.
Some a bit scary, but most just deserted.
Places where lots of people had been, but were there no longer.
Empty and sad, rather than spooky.
Often signs of vagrants, or other kids having been there before.
Burnt out fires, empty bottles, that sort of thing.
God, the freedom we had to put ourselves in harms way back then.
Hard to believe now.
Great memories Mish. I can imagine the old buildings round Shipley. Spooky stuff I bet but interesting for us kids. An older brother of a mate once took us into a buildings basement and convinced us a vampire lived there! To this day I could swear I saw a coffin! Memory!
DeleteYeh, have a look at Hilsea lines, they were part of the line of forts on the southcoast, commonly known as Palmerston's Follies, when I was a lad, we used the Hilsea Lines to explore and eventually got into what we thought was a disused MOD stores site, we planned to sleep over there, gathering stuff from various parts of the site, only to discover on the day we planned to stay, the hole in the fence that was historical was closed and barb-wired my friends had personal stuff in there too, luckily with no personal details on😄
ReplyDeleteHa ha, rumbled! A close shave that MJ! You could have ended up in the MoDs brig! Great memories though. Not sure kids could do it now. Too many nutjobs around!
DeleteYou certainly captured the atmosphere of this brooding old place, Woodsy. I was thinking it would've been a perfect location for an episode of the Omega Factor.
ReplyDeleteI once got access to a small deserted former Soviet missile base, hidden deep inside a huge forest miles outside Vilnius, Lithuania. That was 1997.
Id love to see something like that Tony, I got a great book at xmas, on an urban explorers visit to Baikonur and the old soviet shuttle facility. Fascinating stuff. Bill
DeleteI've never seen Omega Factory Tone but I certainly imagined Dr.Who being filmed there. That missile based sounds incredible. Me and the Missus visited a neat site on the Isle of Wight. Possibly a missile store from the cold war. I just can't recall. My minds been bunkered!
DeleteThat looks like my kind of place. The trepanation operation is interesting, given the age. Maybe it was water on the brain and wanted to give him a small tap on the head?
ReplyDeleteOoh, dark humour. Yes, I was shocked by the trepanning discovery. I was fascinated how hundreds of volunteers worked and slept there in the nearby farmhouse over many decades. They must have been strange but glorious days.
DeleteShades of Ramsey Campbell’s Brichester if not Goatswood.
ReplyDeleteDon't know them Anon. Are they in his novels?
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