Location: Oxford, UK Gender: Male Total Likes: 2377 likes
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The Gray Family's Empire of Junk and Cars < on 4/12/2023 5:33 PM > | Reply with Quote
Deep in the rural countryside of the eastern reaches of the UK sit two long derelict locations situated within around 20 minutes drive of each other. Both of them, if paperwork located in the far corners of the main yard was to be believed, were owned by the same family, and indeed the two locations do share a handful of similarities in places.
The family owned a general store in a small village, which has been derelict since the late 1980s at a rough guess. It's a fairly well known location in the exploring community and gets a fair bit of foot traffic, however all that seemed to change between my visits was a lot more of the roofs collapsing - including the whole of the front corner of the bay window - and all the undergrowth being cleared which uncovered the rusted remains of a Citroen GS, and a load of outbuildings that had been hidden behind dense bushes.
The second location is a lot more to my liking. They owned a plot of land in an extremely rural area of the county, and over time filled it with cars and trucks as it seemed they also had hands in being car breakers as well as retailers. At the far end of the property are two large static caravans (or 'trailers' as you Americans call them) with ramshackle sheds and outbuildings attached to them filled with a similar assortment of general stores junk and random household stuff that can be seen at the shop. Although this site also gets a fair amount of footfall, the trailers and various other things located deep into the undergrowth at the ends of the site don't get nearly as much traffic, I only saw them because my friend who lives local to the place showed me how to reach them!
Both of these were revisits for me, as I first explored them on a trip back in 2018 - however missed a load of stuff from each of them at the time so was more than happy to return.
Firstly, the General Store. Like many shops of the time, it had an attached house for the shopkeepers to live in. A lot of stuff has been staged in here over the years unsurprisingly.
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And onwards to the bigger prize. The shots are a mix of my usual wide angle and 30mm prime lens, which I really need to use more often as I forgot how good it is.
Re: The Gray Family's Empire of Junk and Cars < Reply # 1 on 4/12/2023 7:53 PM > | Reply with Quote
Killer stuff! That's some super levels of decay in some of those shots. The really heavy moss and undergrowth looks just like the Pacific Northwest over here