Lanarkshire

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Crisp Monster

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Paid a visit to this place tonight, have seen it from afar for a while but have never checked it out. It is a small estate of worker's houses next to an active waterworks which is now largely automated, hence no need for workers. The works itself was built in the late 1940s, so it seems logical that the houses were built at the same time; I found a 1997 phone book inside one house, so I would guess they were abandoned shortly after that. There is also a small playground in front of the houses, which has fairly contemporary spring type toys in it. I'm not going to be too specific about where this is, but suffice it to say it is in the middle of nowhere, at a height of about 1000 feet. I keep measuring the height of places I am visiting for two reasons; firstly to highlight the innocuous nature of such places being in such remote locations, and secondly because I've just spent hundreds of quid on a watch with an altimeter and I'm trying to justify doing so to myself.

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Although not visible on the above pictures, there is a line of streetlights opposite the houses, giving the impression of a derelict suburban street.

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The playground was possibly the most eerie thing about this place, as the toys look so modern. I had to resist having a go, because if I fell off and hurt myself there was not another person around for five miles in any direction.

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The back garderns were totally overgrown, and the yards were full of a variety of bizarre rubbish, including this...

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God only knows.

All of the houses had been forced open at the back, and I had a look around about half of them. I thought I'd save something for another time.

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That's not carpet, by the way, but moss. Two of the houses had burst pipes in them, and one was totally flooded on the ground floor.

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Water feature.

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Who screwed the pooch?

Some of the houses were fairly intact inside, with very little damp or vandalism, and some were completely trashed. Someone seems to have been looking after the houses at one point, as a few broken windows have been boarded over.

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The interior fixtures and fittings mostly date from the time of construction, eg light switches in bakelite, but oddly the windows were double glazed fairly recently. Not that it has stopped some idiot breaking several of them. Central heating was via radiators powered by coal fired back boiler. Only one of these seemed to be intact.

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The state of decoration varied from house to house, with some being fairly intact and some with paper hanging off the walls. The worst house seems to have been painted with oil based stuff which was flaking off in huge chunks.

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The whole house was also covered with really bad mould.

Some of the houses were empty of posessions, but others appeared to have been left in a hurry. A number had rooms which were full of clothing (including underwear), paperwork (including bank statements, college coursework, school books etc), books, car parts, and most pathetically, toys.

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Walking around these rooms felt like intruding on some private grief, and I couldn't bring myself to look through them, fascinating though they were.

One of the houses seems to have been used as a mess hall for contractors at some point, and was a bit tidier than the rest. I found these on one of their benches.

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The twin pillars of the British construction industry; the HSE, and Jordan. Woaarr, Geddinntheremysahhnn.

On my way out, I noticed something on the wall.

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Q. What do you call the square grey box on the back of a satellite dish?
A. A council house.

(And before anyone gets a benny on, I grew up on a scheme)

A last view as I walked off into the sunset.

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There is a large and active works next to these houses which would be worth an explore, but it is cameraed to hell and back, infa red and everything. Best left alone I would say; given how twitchy the government is about terrorism these days, you would be inviting an SAS death squad if you got too interested in a public water supply.
 
Bit more info about this site.

A few years back a local man was apparently negotiating with the utility company to buy these houses and let them as holiday homes, but the deal fell through at the last minute and the company has said that they will never come on the market again. So it looks like they will just carry on decaying. They would have made great holiday homes, as they are in a really nice location.

A couple of local views

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both taken from the dam above the houses.
 

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