After exploring the forester's cottage, we returned to our cars and headed for our next destination: an old abandoned farmhouse on the very edge of a small rural settlement.
About 30 minutes later, we arrived and parked roughly 100 metres away near a former railway crossing. Judging by its condition, no train had passed through there for a very long time.
The abandoned farm was neither fenced nor otherwise secured, allowing us to enter the property without any difficulty. Shortly after arriving, we met two young women who had apparently come up with the same idea. During a brief conversation, we learned that they had already finished exploring the site. They also admitted they were a little proud to run into an urban explorer who was fairly well known within the scene.
After saying goodbye, we began our own exploration, starting with the outbuildings along the roadside. Whether they had served purely as garages and storage buildings or had once been used for other purposes was impossible to determine. What we did find, however, was an astonishing amount of clutter. Containers, bicycles, old shoes, radios, and even trophies from dog shows were scattered throughout the buildings.
We then turned our attention to the farmhouse itself, where the amount of abandoned belongings was even greater. Piles of old newspapers, countless calendars, clothing, and household items lay everywhere. Much of the furniture had been overturned, and it was obvious that someone had searched through the cupboards and drawers in the hope of finding valuables.
The resulting chaos meant that there were hardly any worthwhile photographic subjects left inside the house. Far more interesting were the numerous magazines, documents, and working records related to cattle breeding. Among them were several issues of the magazine Rind im Bild and even a cattle insemination record from 1989. These discoveries strongly suggested that the former owner had been a cattle farmer and that the farm was still in active agricultural use at least until the late 1980s.
A visit to the barn reinforced that impression. We found the typical drinking bowls used for cattle, while an adjoining building still housed a machine for mixing animal feed.
Part of the barn had been filled with large quantities of cut firewood, alongside a few pieces of old furniture, including worn armchairs. Whether the wood had already been stored there by the farmer remains unclear. By the time it was stacked inside, however, the building could no longer have been used to house livestock. It is therefore equally possible that a later owner or occupant had simply converted part of the barn into a wood store.
Unfortunately, we were unable to uncover any reliable information about the history of the farm, so any conclusions beyond these observations would be purely speculative.
With our exploration of the abandoned farmhouse coming to an end, so did our day of urban exploring. We returned to our cars and began the journey home - unaware that just a month later, the farmhouse would be destroyed by fire.
To find out more about the history and to check out all the photos from this place, click the button below.
