Deserted Places

Friday, October 18, 2013

Hafodunos Hall, an abandoned mansion in Wales

flickr.com/The Roberts Organisation

Hafodunos Hall is a house located near the village of Llangernyw in north Wales. It was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, a prominent Gothic Revival architect and built between 1861 and 1866 for Henry Robertson Sandbach, whose family had bought the estate in 1830. The new house was built to replace a much older hall which had been built in 1674. The site had been occupied since at least 1530 but the remains of both previous houses are untraceable.

The Sandbach family sold Hafodunos in the early 1930s. The building has had different uses since, from being a private girls' school to an old people's home. The nursing home shut down in 1993 as it failed to meet quality standards. In 2004 the largest part of the house was destroyed by a devastating fire, and following that, the whole site was left abandoned. In 2010 the property was bought for £390,000 and the new owners announced their desire to restore the house and use it as a residence.

SEE ALSO: More abandoned houses around the world // More abandoned places in the United Kingdom // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES
For more deserted places, LIKE US on Facebook and FOLLOW US on twitter

(Click here for the full post)

flickr.com/Carl Jones

flickr.com/The Roberts Organisation

Friday, October 11, 2013

Craco, a medieval Italian ghost town

First inhabited by Greeks during the 6th century AD, Craco was built 40 km (25 miles) inland and on a very steep summit for defensive reasons. During the following centuries, the town went under feudal control. A university was established in 1276 and by 1561 it had reached a population of 2,590 people.

By 1799, the townspeople overthrew the feudal system and Craco became an independent municipality and later, part of the Kingdom of Italy.

Soon though, the town started facing geological problems. By the beginning of the 20th century, hundreds of inhabidants had emigrated to north America due to poor agricultural conditions. A series of earthquakes and landslides followed in the next decades and in 1963 the entire population of 1,800 residents moved to Craco Peschiera for safety reasons.

Today, the ghost town of Craco is visited by many tourists as well as many old residents who return back to the their hometown for annual religious festivals. The image of Craco has been used over the years in various films as a background setting; Quantum of Solace and The Passion of the Christ, being two of them.

For more deserted places, LIKE US on Facebook and FOLLOW US on twitter

(Click her for the full post)

abandonedplaygrounds.com

detourme.com

Monday, October 7, 2013

Inside the Fukushima evacuation zone

Two and a half years after the devastating Japan earthquake and tsunami, as well as the nuclear disaster that followed, killing 19,000 people and displacing more than 300,000, Reuters photographer Damir Sagolj returned to the region to document the lives of those affected by the tragedy. Even today, tens of thousands of survivors live in temporary housing as the area surrounding the nuclear plant remains too contaminated by radiation for residents to return for more than short visits.

SEE ALSO: This photographer went inside Fukushima's nuclear disaster exclusion zone // The abandoned towns of Fukushima // More abandoned ghost towns around the world // More abandoned places in Japan // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES
For more deserted places, LIKE US on Facebook and FOLLOW US on twitter

(Click here for the full post)

A sign reading "Nuclear Power - The Energy for a Better Future", at the entrance of the evacuated town of Futuba, Fukushima

Damir Sakojl/Reuters

A vending machine carried in a field by the tsunami, near Minamisoma, Fukushima, inside the exclusion zone

A small monument for the victims in the evacuated town of Namie, Fukushima

Inside a restaurant in the evacuated town of Namie, Fukushima

Inside an abandoned house in the evacuated town of Namie, Fukushima

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Mexico's abandoned 'Monumento de Mestizaje'