Sooner or later I’m going to be out of Urbex content, due to this stupid virus that is locking us down.
It’s just as well that I did a huge day of exploring only 2 days before the lockdown was announced.
I’m now starting to climb the walls knowing there so much to see, where places are (due to research + loads of time), but knowing I can’t go out.
Here are a few fails from my last trip in collaboration with ‘Dizzy Discovery’ from YouTube.
Scout Hall
This one is completely off the radar and I came across it simply by accident by scouring the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, and local news.
Scout Hall at Shibden near Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, was built in 1681 for John Mitchell (1659–1696), who had inherited great wealth as a silk merchant. Mitchell was castigated by the preacher Oliver Heywood for his dissolute way of life, spending his money on horse racing and drink.
By the time we arrived ‘John Mitchell’ was long gone and we parked some ways from the old manor house as the road was pot-holed badly and my car would never have survived the last part of the trip.
Well, now you sexy lady.. you did look the part on arrival and were those genuine smashed windows we could see? This was going to be good, or…
Why are the windows on the right side of this magnificent building not smashed?
I peered a little closer and spotted a middle-aged woman inside mooching around, and pretending to ignore the two of us taking photographs of her, no not her…, Scout Hall.
Well shit, it's being renovated and that means a big fat failure. The building is a little square, don't you think?
She could have invited us in to check out the dodgy end of the building. How inconsiderate!
Old Lane Mill
I was kind of banking on this old decrepit mill on being a given concerning access. From this angle, Old Lane Mill is not what your would call picturesque.
Another Urbex geek I'm in contact with had been there very recently and getting in looked simple enough. It's kind of tough to completely seal these huge mills.
This is a Worsted mill of 1825 to 1828, the oldest and largest surviving example of a multi-story, steam-powered, iron-framed textile mill in Halifax. Unoccupied and in poor repair. This site has been subject to heritage crime.
Every man and his dog has been in there, even old grannies who use zimmer frames explore the place daily.
Yet the day we go, some bastard has been the day before to concrete it up again.
After an extensive search of the exterior, we concluded that we were not getting in that day unless we could leap 15 feet.
Even the sun was playing up and not letting me get any good distance shots, though the ones closer up were a little better.
In the glare of the sun, Old Lane Mill almost looks like it has had a spot of sandblasting done to the exterior; surely not?
I figured this might have been an access point once (below).
I mean all you need to do is trudge through that slimy shit, hop on the handy shopping trolley, then the rusty spike, the mossy ledge and crawl through that gap.
Even that’s been bricked up; we were truly devastated at not getting in Old Lane Mill, I mean... it's just embarrassing!
It was a bad start to my first crack at @c0ff33a’s home town, but things that day would improve and our next target would yield to our intimidating presence.
If you found this article so invigorating that you are now a positively googly-eyed, drooling lunatic with dripping saliva or even if you liked it just a bit, then please upvote, comment, resteem, engage me or all of these things.
I love the old manor house! What a gorgeous place to make your home.
Very interesting pics. Thanks for sharing @slobberchops
The square building half renovated got a laugh from me.
I bet they get people stumbling up to it all the time looking for a way in 🤣
Yeah, we are a tiresome lot, always trying to go places we shouldn't and all that!
Did you find out what they were renovating the Scout Hall into?
They seemed reluctant to come out and talk to us, well.. I say they, there was just a woman. Here's a little history...
https://lowercalderlegends.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/scout-hall-shibden-valley/
There's also a blog about restoring the place but it hasn't been updated since 2014.
https://scouthallshibden.blogspot.com/
From the sound of it, a family bought it as family home and they wanted to renovate it since 2012.
That's rough.
The house might outlive them judging by the speed of renovation.
No kidding. I don't think that's a project for the manpower they have.
It's too bad they were renovating that place. It looks like it would have been a really cool place to poke around in. At least you got a little bit of material from the mill. Besides the virus, eventually you will run out of new places to visit too. You are like a rock star urbexer, despite what the people on that forum say, you money grubber! :)
I don't get to see these really good places like @grindle does. Doesn't matter to me, they are all good too see, but mills.. well as I said about that one... ;)
Very cool hobby!
You should come along, I know you'd love it!
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Awesome. These old mills are special. Nice double post! Know what you mean about running out of content, i ran out of drone stuff ages ago!