Following a rough idea and our nose, this was the last location on mine and Flubbera's trip today. After 4 sites we were exhausted but in high spirits. We knew the barns held a sizeable collection of cars but nothing prepared us for what we found inside the house itself.
A modest but overgrown two-up, two-down cottage looking to be at the very least 1700s in architecture probably wouldn't provide much interest to people - but the moral of the story is you never know what is behind the doors of even the most unassuming looking building. We had finished with the cars in the barn and decided to tramp through the undergrowth to the old farmhouse. One push of the front door and we were running back to the car to get torches, not quite believing what we were seeing inside.
Anyway, cars first. Here is some of what is out in the barns...it's a real shame that almost all of them are too far gone to save.
We moved onto the house. It took us about 15 minutes once inside to fully register in our minds what we were seeing. The first thing that hit us was the smell - the smell of tobacco mixed with the ancient wood-burning stove filled the air in the living room, floor and walls covered in stuff, one man's obsessive hoarding of, well, anything. We spent about half an hour in the small living room alone poking through the piles and piles of things in near-darkness. Things were tidier upstairs, but more personal. Cases piled on beds full of items, personal items laid out on dressers and wardrobes full of clothing. Part of it felt wrong sifting through a man and his wife's belongings but after a while that faded, and we tried to make sense of the huge amount of things in both upstairs bedrooms. In a draw we found a photo of his wife standing proudly outside the cottage, hidden in a book we found 3 (yes 3!) genuine four-leaf clovers. Books were stacked on the floor and in boxes, clothing everywhere. In the end me and Flubbera only scratched the surface of what could be in here.
I apologise in advance for the quality of some pics - the lighting was poor at best with trees growing up around the windows, and trying to manouvre a tripod around the clutter to find flat floor was hard!
If, on the off chance you do know where this is, can I request you keep it to yourself. Thanks.
More photos of the cars here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157626799477257/
And the house here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157626799573013/
A modest but overgrown two-up, two-down cottage looking to be at the very least 1700s in architecture probably wouldn't provide much interest to people - but the moral of the story is you never know what is behind the doors of even the most unassuming looking building. We had finished with the cars in the barn and decided to tramp through the undergrowth to the old farmhouse. One push of the front door and we were running back to the car to get torches, not quite believing what we were seeing inside.
Anyway, cars first. Here is some of what is out in the barns...it's a real shame that almost all of them are too far gone to save.
We moved onto the house. It took us about 15 minutes once inside to fully register in our minds what we were seeing. The first thing that hit us was the smell - the smell of tobacco mixed with the ancient wood-burning stove filled the air in the living room, floor and walls covered in stuff, one man's obsessive hoarding of, well, anything. We spent about half an hour in the small living room alone poking through the piles and piles of things in near-darkness. Things were tidier upstairs, but more personal. Cases piled on beds full of items, personal items laid out on dressers and wardrobes full of clothing. Part of it felt wrong sifting through a man and his wife's belongings but after a while that faded, and we tried to make sense of the huge amount of things in both upstairs bedrooms. In a draw we found a photo of his wife standing proudly outside the cottage, hidden in a book we found 3 (yes 3!) genuine four-leaf clovers. Books were stacked on the floor and in boxes, clothing everywhere. In the end me and Flubbera only scratched the surface of what could be in here.
I apologise in advance for the quality of some pics - the lighting was poor at best with trees growing up around the windows, and trying to manouvre a tripod around the clutter to find flat floor was hard!
If, on the off chance you do know where this is, can I request you keep it to yourself. Thanks.
More photos of the cars here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157626799477257/
And the house here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157626799573013/
