I have to thank @grindle for letting me in on the whereabouts of The Coffin Maker's House. It's one of those places that you would have a lot of difficulties finding without some assistance.
It seems months ago since @dizzydiscovery and I went far, far to the south to visit this gem of a time capsule, and it was worth the effort.
The Coffin Maker’s House is a little off the beaten track and so we had to park around half a mile away and walk past a large detached property hoping there would be nobody in.
This seemed to be the case as we saw nobody at all, and once on the grounds, access is as easy as walking through the front door.
A little info I picked up is that it has been abandoned for 25 years now and the woman who owned it ended up going into an old people’s home.
As for the coffins, the woman had a relative who was an undertaker who used to store coffins there. The info was provided by a farmer who owns the land adjacent to the property.
I have to challenge this and you can make your mind up after seeing what is below. A certain 'Mr. Meredith' appears to have lived here and was an undertaker. The history and what has been left behind tells all.
Like many of the best places, it has been visited a lot but the dickhead crew still don't know where it is. For this reason, I have had to edit out the address on several of my images to protect anonymity.
Several years ago, a homeless guy was living here but has since moved back to a nearby town.
From what I understand he had permission from the owners and his job was to scare off Urban Explorers and other unwanted guests.
I guess this is where he used to sleep and listen to the radio. Those things consume a lot of battery power and I have my doubts about whether mains power has been seen in recent times.
I found myself bending down to have a look at this and that on many an occasion. It amazes me that there is so much left after years of neglect and that many of these items have not been stolen.
A coffin maker needs a good hearse to put those dead bodies in. Did he buy this model I wonder? £138 to insure your hearse in 1984, how I wish insurance was so cheap now.
I did not look to see if these were decaying peaches or some other body parts.
Before the internet, we had to use these local magazines to buy and sell anything.
Who remembers 'buying on approval?' This has the seventies written all over it.
As you can see, access to The Coffin Maker’s House is relatively simple. Someone seems to have used dynamite on this wall to make things slightly easier still.
Home-sweet-home; The internal design was great and would have been lovely to live in once.
25 years of being empty and yet all this food remains? I find that a tough one to swallow. No doubt this is part of Mr. Homeless's old stash.
There's even intact crockery for your food if you dig deep enough.
So Mr. Meredith liked his caravans, there was one in what used to be the garden in very bad condition.
The newspapers I uncovered were from the '50s to the '90s. A life's worth of stashing.
This was in an outhouse and I dare not prise it open as it would have dissolved in my hands.
I could have spent hours here, it was one of those places where there’s too much to look at.
The hunt for coffins was still on and finally, I found evidence of Mr. Meredith's carpentry, or did he simply buy them in?
The van was crammed with old papers, bank statements, and many personal items.
Things were not looking too good in 1969, almost £2500 in the red. Coffin making was not so buoyant just after the flower power period.
Coffin handles… and many more all around my feet; I’m not ready to go just yet.
2 years later and the debt was now halved. He could even afford a funeral magazine. What else would he be reading?
There was a huge stash of ‘Wildlife’ magazines besides these.
Likewise, the caravan held many a treasure if you cared to look and struggle to get to them.
Someone should really clean that window, I mean how are you even going to see what’s outside?
Marshall Cavendish ran these series of magazines in the seventies and hoped you would be roped into buying them forever. Mr. Meredith obviously did and enjoyed his never-ending encyclopedia series.
This looked intriguing, what was it and what was inside? Do you think I'm that insane to drag myself through all those nettles to look?
This was the oldest newspaper clipping I found. 1952, woo.., now that’s old.
After messing around in the garden, van, caravan, and downstairs, it was time to check the upstairs area.
That's if it would take our weight, the house was not in great condition but still... there were stairs.
OK, so some rooms had fared better than others. There are large holes between the mishmash of junk that you can see and equally large drops.
Still, there was more stuff again and we found ourselves looking just about everywhere for anything that looked interesting.
Hydrogen Peroxide is an antiseptic to treat cuts and scrapes and is also used to whiten teeth in more modern times. I doubt this bottle was purchased for the latter reason.
Inflation was rife in 1972. Half a pence more.. just terrible!
The Coffin Maker's House was the highlight of our day. What a place, full of surprises, history, and all-around grotty goodness.
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