I have seen some overgrown places in my time but never have I had to work so hard thrashing through bushes, nettles, brambles, and creepers to get to my target.
What made it worse was that once past these iron gates and within the grounds, some bastard had placed a bunch of dead young trees with the spiky bits pointing toward me in a deliberate attempt to stop explorers from getting to the goal.
Well fuck that, it wasn’t going to stop us. ‘Stone Wharf’ was our last stop, it was getting late and we were not going to end the day with a fail.
Next to ‘Stone Wharf' was a semi-detached property thankfully with a large fence in between them and us. Still, we had to be quiet as not to alert them.
A little digging provided me some information that the fire is not so old and the property was intact until 3 years ago.
Squatters had lived in ‘Stone Wharf' until someone decided it needed to burn down. Explosions were heard! What was in there prior to the fire?
https://www.lep.co.uk/news/crime/building-substantially-damaged-after-blaze-garstang-1098841
After around 15 minutes of scrambling, getting stung, and tripping up over all the greenery we spotted the house, nestled deep, lost, and in another time.
I knew from my research not to expect a time-capsule and that ‘Stone Wharf’ was severely burnt and damaged.
Was there going to be anything left besides rubble, dust, and loose stones?
A blowtorch. Was this responsible for starting the fire? Surely not!
So this was not the most stable of properties. I have been in worse.
It was quite evident this once distinctive property was now a shell.
Plenty of greenery was joining the interior rooms and what was left? Is this the remains of a rusted oven?
If the house went up in flames, then how has this cardboard box survived? The colour is faded telling me it's been here for some time.
The filing cabinet opened most reluctantly with a little force and a lot of scraping and screeching noises.
One document had survived as it was within a plastic sheet, burnt but not destroyed. Opening it, I found a couple of personal items.
Some packages were delivered in 1999 and 2002, and an unfortunate letter for Mrs. Towers delivering the bad news that her benefits are now going to be taxed.
The dates of both documents are 1988 and only £353.28 a year? It seems mean of them to tax her on such a paltry amount.
Upstairs was not on the cards for
Struggling with loose bricks moving under my feet I managed to reach the top of the stairs and figured that was probably the limit of my adventurous streak.
That was about it for the house, the garage not yielding anything particularly exciting besides the bottle of water which did not look of vintage stock.
Just a few bits and bobs in the garden but other than this there was little left in 'Stone Wharf'.
What became of Mrs. Towers and why did she leave this very unique looking house, in a leafy suburb of Preston.
Was it related to her getting fewer benefits? I guess we will never know.
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