I have sat on these photos a long time - now the land has been cleared and is currently occupied by a family storing their Autograss racecars there as well as other new cars and things like that, as I found out when I went back last summer. To say I was gutted was an understatement as I had been meaning to re-shoot it for so long but other things, and other explores, kept taking priority and during my one and only revisit, soon after this one, I didn't take a single photo as it was pouring with rain and not very pleasant. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but at least I have the photos from my original visit.
I love car graveyards, them and industry are my absolute favourite thing to shoot in the world, and I've been lucky enough to see some pretty amazing ones over the years but this, this one is without doubt the single most amazing car graveyard I have ever seen in the UK. One of my non-explorer friends who works as a delivery driver found it by accident after taking a wrong turn on his way to a drop, he told me about it and after a short while me and my friend were able to get down there during a day in which we shot two other car graveyards (was a great day!). We initially turned up nice and early however a neighbour who lived opposite was hanging around eyeing us suspiciously so we left, and returned to the location on the way home. We got in with no trouble at all and our jaws were instantly on the floor.
The story went that the old guy who lived in the house on the land (also abandoned but well sealed) would run a car until it broke down, dump it out the back of his property, then go out and buy another one although I imagine he was somewhat of a hoarder of other peoples cars as well. He was put into a care home and although his family lived nearby the house and the plot of land was left abandoned. I did a rough count using the aerial view of Google Maps and totalled up around about 100 cars on his property however unfortunately for us many of them were so tightly packed together, and the undergrowth so dense, it was impossible to get to maybe half of them. The frontage of the house was just as insane, it had cars literally spilling out the driveway onto the road - I wish I had got a photo of the front at the time but we knew it was a heavily watched place so didn't want to risk it - again, hindsight is wonderful. On my return last summer the whole front end of the property had been cleared out and a new access road put in, there was maybe only three cars left at that point.
There were countless different kinds of cars out back but the majority of them belonged to the Rootes family of marques - Hillman, Singer, Humber, Sunbeam, and of those the majority were Rootes 'Arrows' variants. There was also more unusual stuff like a Sunbeam Rapier Fastback, a Renault 12, a Commer PB Campervan, a Bedford CA Campervan and a pair of Mk.1 Ford Transit Beavertail trucks complete with cars on the back.
I'm not sure when things began to get cleared out but it had obviously been going on for some time, there is nothing left here now.
These photos were all shot handheld - the place was so overgrown that the majority of the time was spent crouched or stooping to get around, there were only a few places you could actually stand up straight.
I look back now and I wish I could have spent more time there, taken more photos, documented it more. However due to the combination of it being the most noisy place in the world to navigate thanks to the mass of twisted dead undergrowth and branches breaking under every step, the occupied site in direct eyeline of the cars with people working in it, and the knowledge the neighbour opposite kept a close watch on the place too, we didn't want to push our luck too much. Such is life!
Thanks for looking
I love car graveyards, them and industry are my absolute favourite thing to shoot in the world, and I've been lucky enough to see some pretty amazing ones over the years but this, this one is without doubt the single most amazing car graveyard I have ever seen in the UK. One of my non-explorer friends who works as a delivery driver found it by accident after taking a wrong turn on his way to a drop, he told me about it and after a short while me and my friend were able to get down there during a day in which we shot two other car graveyards (was a great day!). We initially turned up nice and early however a neighbour who lived opposite was hanging around eyeing us suspiciously so we left, and returned to the location on the way home. We got in with no trouble at all and our jaws were instantly on the floor.
The story went that the old guy who lived in the house on the land (also abandoned but well sealed) would run a car until it broke down, dump it out the back of his property, then go out and buy another one although I imagine he was somewhat of a hoarder of other peoples cars as well. He was put into a care home and although his family lived nearby the house and the plot of land was left abandoned. I did a rough count using the aerial view of Google Maps and totalled up around about 100 cars on his property however unfortunately for us many of them were so tightly packed together, and the undergrowth so dense, it was impossible to get to maybe half of them. The frontage of the house was just as insane, it had cars literally spilling out the driveway onto the road - I wish I had got a photo of the front at the time but we knew it was a heavily watched place so didn't want to risk it - again, hindsight is wonderful. On my return last summer the whole front end of the property had been cleared out and a new access road put in, there was maybe only three cars left at that point.
There were countless different kinds of cars out back but the majority of them belonged to the Rootes family of marques - Hillman, Singer, Humber, Sunbeam, and of those the majority were Rootes 'Arrows' variants. There was also more unusual stuff like a Sunbeam Rapier Fastback, a Renault 12, a Commer PB Campervan, a Bedford CA Campervan and a pair of Mk.1 Ford Transit Beavertail trucks complete with cars on the back.
I'm not sure when things began to get cleared out but it had obviously been going on for some time, there is nothing left here now.
These photos were all shot handheld - the place was so overgrown that the majority of the time was spent crouched or stooping to get around, there were only a few places you could actually stand up straight.
I look back now and I wish I could have spent more time there, taken more photos, documented it more. However due to the combination of it being the most noisy place in the world to navigate thanks to the mass of twisted dead undergrowth and branches breaking under every step, the occupied site in direct eyeline of the cars with people working in it, and the knowledge the neighbour opposite kept a close watch on the place too, we didn't want to push our luck too much. Such is life!
Thanks for looking
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