A Trail of Two Houses. Exploring ruins on the hills of Yorkshire.

good morning afternoon evening or night whenever you're watching this welcome it's a hazy misty sort of a day and i'm planning on exploring two ruined old farmhouses that sit on the edge of a wily windy moor fog might have more dramatic appeal for such an expedition but after a fairly long period of bleak wintery weather i'm just happy there's light enough to film by and the wind is relatively low and quiet so it's a good day for exploring and seeing what can be found [Music] so [Music] the rocks over there i presume were moved off the field when it was in an earlier incarnation and this lumpy clam-shaped depression i would guess is the remains of several spots where the stream has bubbled up and broken through the surface although i don't know for sure and happy to be educated if anyone knows better that is the first farmhouse i intend to visit and the other one is up there in a straight line through the gateway i'm not at all sure yet when either of them were abandoned there might be clues to be found but i would imagine it was one of three things economics making it unviable for these small-scale farms to survive or children of farmers not wishing to follow parents into farming or and this is quite likely for at least some of the empty farms on these hills people went off to war and did not return so there is a main road further up the hill that connects two towns and the traffic pair goes fast and noisy not quite drowning out the bird song yet curl use a mostly coastal bird that comes in land here to nest the sheep are in no way bothered by my presence just curious to see if i'm bringing from anything good to supplement the grass makes a change from the skittish wildlife here none of which i've managed to befriend since i moved into these hills i used to have the trust of a few birds which were comfortable enough with me to eat from my hand i miss it on the road at the bottom of this gully there is an old wesleyan schoolhouse built in 1865 for older methodist buildings in the area and john wesley preached in a few local places it's quite large for a countryside schoolhouse so it certainly suggests a human population at least double what it is at the moment so it's fairly safe to assume that most of the ruined farms were not abandoned by that point this is corroborated although not confirmed by old maps which show them miss dwellings up to at least the start of the 20th century i'm not entirely sure if the map makers counted ruins as houses or not here we are and there's a convenient gap in the fence along with a nice patch of mud to squelch through it looks like there was an extension largely collapsed perhaps barns or storerooms another extension here with a huge stone horse trough nearby the front wall would have been too low for it to be stables but farming related perhaps no evidence i can see if it being a kitchen first appearances it looks like it's been built over several centuries with some very different styles of stonework and the window on this side is missing a lintel and it looks like there's one about the right size over here actually two of them monolithic stones and i'm pretty sure each one weighs half a ton or more so ah they're not window lentils i'm not sure the name of them but i'm pretty sure they're from fireplaces just below the mantelpiece anyway let's go in and explore looks like this room used to have a window walled in now and the door frame looks like the stone was sawn a bit too regular to be chisel marks so probably not the oldest part of the building still plenty old though those window frames up there looks like there was a weaving room upstairs predating the industrial revolution probably 16 something to late 1700s at least two more windows that were filled in probably because of the extension built on the other side of this wall for remains of lime plaster which could expand and contract with varying humidity and a big crack which means that this wall will fall not soon not today but maybe a decade from now in a big storm or of course someone could fall in love with this place buy it and rebuild it stone for stone a mammoth undertaking an expensive much more than building a house from scratch not sure what that little opening's for with its own lintel and seemingly going only about halfway through the double thickness wall any ideas no idea what this was either i don't think it's house goods perhaps a liner for part of a chimney and speaking of which there's one of those lintel stones on a large fireplace with an old straight up sword of a chimney which once upon a time a young boy would have been sent up to clean it out let's see if there's any bird's nests or treasure nope not this time i do wonder if i'm small enough to climb that bow that would be dangerous but kind of an appealing thing to try one day sadly some plastic and i didn't bring a bag with me to collect rubbish today though now i know it's here i intend to return with one and perhaps my other camera for pictures circular hole which might have had a wall sconce for a light rolled up doorway which suggests it was once subdivided have i missed anything cross beams numerous and much smaller than the main beams no sign of a staircase so probably a ladder of the first floor and another one of those low down lintels over a little nook curious maybe a ventilation opening for the cavity wall now that walled up doorway is much cruder than the one to the extension so it might be one of the original exterior doors of a tiny little farmhouse that grew into this large place which would explain why it has a little window beside it let's go and see from the other side now this stonework looks finer than the last section exterior but that doesn't mean it's younger it might just have been built by a generation that could afford better craftsmanship but still part of a door hanging would have been a very drafty door even when it was new quite beautiful rust and the interior stonework is quite rough i think it might be the oldest section of a house now that's a pleasant surprise an axle and wheels of an old farm thing i don't know what the thing was but i guess it's around 100 years old give or take a decade maybe part of a horse drum plow it has beauty now anyway whatever it once was and there's another walled up doorway with a window beside it this building is very strange i mean it seems to have been one house at times and perhaps three houses at others it was undoubtedly a small cottagey sort of a place to begin with and grew and grew big fireplaces and that looks like a small one was added upstairs which suggests that upstairs might have been added though on this wall there's no former roofline there's a vague hint for windows upstairs for a later edition and on this final wall of a room varies clearly a former roof line and that's still tall enough that the original building would have had an upstairs room although it wouldn't have had any windows again there's no sign of any staircase and no upstairs doorway so ladder again to get up there i wonder how he got the weaving looms up there dismantled for sealing a bit to lift from up or built them upstairs almost forgot to have a look at the chimney it's not as straight as the of one but again no bird's nests and no obvious treasure i don't think i can say with any confidence how old the original building is it would be a guess at best but i think late 1500s is a reasonable stabber to guess with additions and alterations all the way up to the early 20th century interesting there's the remains of shutter brackets around this window not around the others and much more dark sort staining which could possibly indicate a fire nothing but the ghost of her former porch remains and him we go the grandest fireplace yet and a collapsed wall with rugged remains of another room beyond another weaving room upstairs and the grandest upstairs fireplace too so it might have been the master bedroom as well as a workshop for weaving that over there looks tantalizingly like a cellar can't just rush over vervo that's how accidents happen and things get missed first there's a rather large cast iron box and there's another slighter but similar one still in the fireplace so coal hopper or ash collector i don't know suggestions anyone there's also a minor coating of salt on the back wall which i did not see in any of the other fireplaces which suggests it was lit more recently from them could it possibly be that as the fortunes of a farming family waned they walled off more and more of the former living spaces ending up in this one alone and now vasela is going to need some light fortunately i brought something in case there was a dark place to film so carefully carefully down we go well it's a very small cellar but not without its charm a big stone shelf for food probably a coal pile at this end of little shelves for things a nice arched roof a little shoot which coal was probably poured down no rust or anything remaining that i can see of the cover for the shoot i'd hope there was one to keep drafts out now behind this diagonally placed slab of stone which i guess was to corral the coal into a neat pile there's shotgun shells moderately old don't see the blue ones around here much and there's bones lots of small mammal bones at least two rabbit skulls and the cranium is something bigger i would guess either fox or badger none of that is surprising dark spots like this are often the sort of place where old and infirm animals crawl off to to die looks like an old bottle top applied lip that's very old nothing much else to be seen in the detritus a shard of glass up there add a few bits and pieces down there in the water which i think is actually a tiny spring and may have provided the house with fresh water amazing little ferns growing in the dark yep a stream of some sort there's a whole cut in this partitioning slab and a drain over there to let the water out it's an interesting feature and i suspect this cellar was deliberately cut down to the stream because i would keep it very cool it's quite an effective form of low-tech refrigeration that might not be all the interest that could be wrong from this small room but i can't spot anything else at the moment so for this video at least let's move on what don't you think that this door was hung on the other side of the door frame than the other one this looks barn-like a very shallow barn but a barn nonetheless the end of that wall suggests a large swing door not much remaining and i think a lot of the stone from it has gone to other newer buildings there's vasala looking like it was a fairly late edition of a building it is interesting to me seeing how the different editions were knitted together i think the middle part is the oldest hard to know which bit came next but this end bit looks like probably one of the newest bits and oddly i can't see any cement between the stones at all in the other sections yes and then this none it doesn't seem likely that such a hefty building would be built of dry stone walling perhaps it was just poor quality mortar used that hasn't lasted might warrant a closer look no gate on this side i think i'll need both hands to climb over so this end bit looks to have been free rooms a small a medium and a large there's no walled up doorway leading to the house one walled up window and absolutely no mortar that i can see between any of the stones no wonder it fell down still impressive bit of building though i doubt i could build a dry stone wall that high and have it still standing by the time i'd finished let alone make a functional free rooms for farm things animals maybe or storage all in all this farmhouse ruin has charmed me he's got some mysteries some ghosts not ghosts of people per se but of all the lights and labors that happened here i could not be the person to rebuild it into a habitable space but for the next decade or so at least it can still be greatly appreciated for the beauty of its decay two farm silhouettes still further up the hill and it's the smaller one that's for ruin [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so it looks like a portion of a roof remains over the barn at least not the house and it also looks like there was some hefty iron work deployed to keep the house together so there's a stone and iron buttress and at least two bolts which would have run all the way through the house but don't look like they're holding up much now all this suggests to me clearly what i'm going to find namely stone slabs that we used as roofing tiles probably an inch or more thick a tremendous weight for walls to carry no sign of weaving room upstairs which i would guess means this house isn't anywhere near as old i'd say maybe 1850s ish with some remedial engineering dating from the early 20th century wow that is a sorry state the walls are visibly leaning away from each other and tearing apart the central load-bearing wall do i dare traverse this precarious pile probably but first there's one of those roofing stones it is a layered stone a bit like slate but less able to hold together in fin slabs so it has to be thick and thick means very very heavy the same size area in slate would weigh a third or less of this through the doorway and into the secret walled garden a landscape of moss and elder taking the space back for nature must look glorious in the glow of good morning light with a million drops of juice sparkling [Music] i'm not clear where the dividing wall was but i seem to be in the barn section now which from the doorways and the layout i'd guess was definitely built for sheep unlike the outer structures of the other house which seemed to have been more general purpose so perhaps that farm was a vegetable growing farm before it was turned over to sheep grazing i think it is actually quite safe to go into that section sheet farm definitely most of us still working sheep farms have newer outbuildings too but at least two of them i know have barns laid out just like this [Music] do [Music] two farmhouse ruins in a line and what the mist is hiding is that on more or less the same line on the other side of a valley versus another free ruins i'm not sure i can film in one of them but there might still be a video there now i shall walk up over the tussocks and buggy lower edges of moreland to the road and then down the road towards home and roundup time which in videos where i bring nothing home but memories and footage tends to become more of a thank you section so thank you all of you for your patience it's been more than a month since i produced a video this one is very late even by my slow standards this latest lockdown has been mentally quite tough and the weather has been bleak i've been struggling to get out filming and i've been struggling with the simplest of craft videos partly because my brain really wants to concentrate more on much more complicated projects instead now for weather is improving a little i hope to do some more walks including some springtime foraging more exploring mud locking again when it's allowable in other news i've done a dry run of setting up my forge making sure that i can light it up safely so in the next week or so weather meeting i intend to film my very first forge melt which is very exciting and raising my morale tremendously it's been about a year since i bought the thing and circumstances have not lined up for me to light it up until about nowish a big thank you to everyone who's watched liked commented on my videos even while i've been severely lacking any social energy to engage and talk back a huge thank you for all the kind donations i've received through kofi and for the things that people have so kindly bought off my youtube channel related amazon wishlist i'm not sure who it was for above this set of wood files and rasps but i am very grateful i like woodworking i'm not particularly good at it but i do intend to do some craft videos that involve it and these will be very useful in that so thank you whoever you are anita evans kindly bought this little packet of metal pellets it doesn't look like much but tin is an expensive metal and it's an essential ingredient for making bronze so thank you so much anita and any suggestions for things that you or anyone else would like to see me attempt to sculpt in bronze are very welcome i'm not sure i can but all suggestions help guide me to the projects i actually attempt barbara hall's mark completely surprised me with this package of things from canada it's got sea glass which i love and will use in crafts it's got a string of chunky glass beads some gorgeous red chandelier parts two red light diffractor lenses the bigger one of which might have been a rear tail light off a motorbike i'm not sure about the smaller one but i really like both a matching pair of porcelain doll arms in a size that i haven't found even one-off over here fleur and kate of mudlocking with kitten caboodlers have been much more proactive at doing interesting things with these but i still hope to try something someday too a glass line which i love was probably the handle of a bonbon dish some little elephants which i think are plastic but they're lovely things nevertheless and very welcome and a small bottle that a friend of hers melted into a hangable ornament and i think i know how it could be done to get results like this which makes me keen to try it myself someday thank you so much barbara this was a wonderful surprise gift for anyone else who does really want to send me things i'm not particularly well set up for it as in i treasure how well i can hide from the world when my introversion demands it so i don't give out my home address lightly and only really to people in distant countries who message me privately either through instagram or my facebook offer page both of which are sadly quite neglected i have looked at getting a po box but one here is 360 pounds for a year that's about 500 u.s not something i can easily afford yet however in the meantime i made a private amazon wishlist public and it's full of treats that i am pretty much guaranteed to enjoy mostly books food and drink it went public just after my last video went live and i was blown away by the general steven came my way through it carol c bought me a jar of pesto that i really like that i haven't been able to get from the shop i used to buy it from since i don't go into shops anymore also some krimbles chocolate coated coconut macaroons and some candy kitten sweets i like the whole range of those these ones are sour watermelon thank you so much carol i'm not sure who sent these but thank you so much a box of new england cookie company vegan cookies choc chips salted caramel fruit shortbread and orange choc chip i am not quite cookie monster but one of my favorite videos on youtube is a mashup of cookie monster and tom waits and i myself do at least have a cookie monster cookie tin which these will have quite temporary residents in again i'm not sure who sent me this box of naked bars which are great little snack bars and i take a few of them whenever i go out mud larking this box contains two each of nine different flavors thank you so much whoever it was who bought it it was very kind and it's greatly appreciated i wish i knew who it was who bought these free books a graphic novel version of robert tressels for rugged trousered philanthropist another graphic novel version of terry pratchett's guards guards and three short terry pratchett novels in one book truckers diggers and wings which i love dearly but haven't read for a very long time rereading old favorites is a comforting treat sometimes so thank you very much to the person or people who bought these and last but by no means least a very big thank you to luis guerin who wasn't particularly inspired this time by what remains on my video related wish list so instead both donated through kofi and then bought this wonderful omnibus collection of edward gory stories and drawings i love edward gorey's style of things and have even written a few things myself inspired by his work i do hope you've enjoyed this video if you have and you'd like to then any way you choose to show appreciation is very much appreciated the options have already been described quite thoroughly likes dislikes comments shares donations through kofi or purchases from one or more of the two available amazon wishlists for is of course no obligation whatsoever for anyone to engage in any of that but the options are there and i'm grateful whenever anyone does i hope that you're all keeping safe and well thank you all very much for watching and for now goodbye

Channel: Tom Burleigh

Views: 11,285

Rating: 4.9847326 out of 5

Keywords: Mud larking, Wading, Walking, Exploration, Exploring, Treasure Hunt, Treasure Hunting, Adventure, Trash Art, Found, Finding, Beach combing, Beachcombing, Pottery Shards, Pottery Sherds, River Glass, Sea glass, Weirs, Vintage Bottles, Yorkshire, ASMR, A.S.M.R.., West Yorkshire, Trash Picking, Urbex, Dump, Antique Bottles, Rurex, Scrap copper, Ruined farm house, Ruins

Id: Dvz1MwJ7tOU

Length: 31min 32sec (1892 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021