Tales of the Urban Explorer: Whinburn Hall Gatehouse
As I am no longer posting my content on Facebook and my audience is mostly non-Urbex people on HIVE, I can name locations with a little more ease.
I won’t be revealing where they are and in some circumstances where it is required, will not name anything at all.
In the case of Whinburn Hall Gatehouse, and it being a wreck I have little qualms about this one.
Whinburn Hall proper has some history in that the last owner had been served with an eviction order and then subsequently killed himself. The story is here and from 2015.
A £1 million mansion in which a former owner killed himself is still for sale two years after the tragedy as buyers shun the jinxed property.
Potential purchasers of the "unlucky" house are being warned that the previous owner took his own life by jumping from the top of a turreted tower.
Currently, it has new owners and is NOT an Urban Exploration target. The gatehouse at the entrance is very much one and a place I had my eye on.
A million quid seems a bit cheap for a jinxed mansion, lots of ground, and this liability next to the front gate.
I could see there was a lot of land, and the house was placed a long way back.., so far we couldn't see it.
This was all the better, as we had to jump over a couple of walls to circumvent the locked gate and enter the old gatehouse.
The first thing I saw after entering was the stairs or lack of them. I do try and get to the upper areas always, but this one was going to be challenging.
Someone had left handy implements for us, but dangling from that bottom stair with my legs flailing wouldn't be much fun.
I did suggest to @dizzydiscovery that we fetch the ladders but dismissed it. Hindsight tells me that would have been a bad idea.
The gatehouse was a wreck with large holes in the floor and little else in the front-most room.
This looks like an eighties style gas-fire.
Inside was deceptively small and I was surprised by the lack of inner space.
The kitchen did have a few goodies remaining. The bottle of Cherryade didn't look too appetizing, I gave it a miss.
The teapot contained a mixture of cobwebs and pigeon shit, lovely! Still, it was quite photogenic.
We had been inside for all of ten minutes and @dizzydiscovery whispered to me, ‘car outside’.
Peeking around the corner there was in-fact a car. Were the owners heading out?
We decided to hide, at least for a while. The tension does build in these situations; @dizzydiscovery looked around the corner again and said to me.
‘there’s a young Asian lad running around like a madman with blood in his eyes’
Next minute a female voice comes floating over to us, ‘anyone in there?’
We figured to come clean, as short of a few external shots had all we need. The gatehouse was not especially huge.
The Asian lady seemed perturbed about our presence but calmed quickly after @dizzydiscovery showed her some photographs, and assured her we were not here to pillage the manor house, rape the women, and enhance the jinxed reputation of Whinburn Hall even further.
The young lad of 19 or so still looked intent on killing us and the murderous look never left his eye. Maybe he was mute as he didn’t say a word.
I did ask politely if I could take a few externals before the lady showed us out, and after a long pause, she agreed.
I thought better of saying, 'can you move your fucking car out of the way while you're at it'.
No, that may have been a little too much. I did question her on how she knew we were on the grounds.
'We got a call', was the simple answer. Now you know why I don't like busybodies.
I mean.. do we look like robbers?
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beautiful photos! The rubble certainly adds to the composition. I'm sorry the couple and her neighbors weren't more welcoming! I feel like any homeowner that young, especially one of a mansion with a jinxed history and decrepit gatehouse, should be a little more open to the concept of people exploring. Funny enough, the part of your post that made me do a double-take is the concept of being evicted after becoming a homeowner. I guess even reaching my goals, my biggest fear will still loom! Hhaha
I tell you, it gets your heart racing.. I hardly dared to breathe and can remember it well. They did seem young to own a $1 million property. I think it was mother and son, though she didn't look very old.
Wow, se conserva bien todavia la fachada, las construcciones antiguas solian ser muy bien y fuertes, me agrado las fotografias, gracias por compartir, te dejo mi voto y te sigo.
Los edificios antiguos de siglos pasados se mantienen bien con el tiempo, especialmente los exteriores. Las secciones internas no tan bien.
At first I thought you had your own motor in the snap. Now I understand.
That car, messed up my snaps! I always do the externals last, something you learn over time.
😂 likewise with the externals, get the good stuff done first.
It does look like a pretty cool old building. That is too bad that someone had to narc on you. They should just mind their own business. To be fair if the guy jumped off the tower outside, hopefully it would just be the grounds that were haunted and not the house itself :)
She did say the gatehouse would be renovated and was OK with us once we talked. The young lad, well maybe he should have been on a chain to stop him biting us...!
This photos show so much history...
It doesn't look very big from your photos, but it's a lot bigger in The Mirror. Are there other bits as well?
We did the gatehouse, you are probably looking at the manor house which is occupied and not Urbex. They used to place these decent houses at the foot of gated landowner property for the butlers and slaves to live in.
I think it is very wise to choose on some locations to not disclose more information than you need to.
This looked interesting from the outside... On the inside...well...The teapot was indeed fancy lol
There are some I will give names too, but which are not the real names. It's common practice in the UX world.
Very good, buildings have to be protected
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It does have character! I hope she can restore it. Maybe she has deep enough pockets. Or perhaps the dude will be the next unlucky owner...
Blimey, that place is massive! I love these old gatehouses, reminds me of those at Mentmore Towers when we lived in Bucks.
The grounds were massive, we should have used more stealth while getting in. The house looks big but seemed small inside, but I wouldn't mind living there, not in this state of course!
It's damn strange, but you (and yes I mean YOU personally) have made me strangely fascinated in looking at grotty old buildings.
Your crisp photos are really cool and thanks to you telling me what program to use I can do that as well now - much appreciated.
We don't really have derelict buildings here in Wellington NZ - property is way too valuable for that - in my neighbourhood a dog kennel would sell straight away for half a mill if it it was on a section big enough to build a house on.
I've taken photos of any houses that haven't been done up yet (few and far between) and will do an urbex post Kiwi style soon.
OK that was me greasing you up - now I have another two questions:
Hive looks to me to be paying a 10%+ return with a decent chance of a gain in value - am I missing a hidden downside?
And is that sweaty prick really you?
Looking forward to it, please use the community!
It is an awesome return, but send some of your liquid out or it's just what you see on the screen. I power most of mine up but diversify somewhat, there are other coins out there that are more stable than HIVE. The downside.. there is, it might all go to nothing, but I doubt it.
That's the question, isn't it? Not telling!..
One more question - why don't you share your urbex posts on your blog? - they are great