Tour Report: The House of Bric-a-Brac

Hidden behind tall trees on an overgrown property, bordered by a quiet country road on one side and a golf course on the other, stood an abandoned thatched-roof house waiting to be explored.

On a chilly Sunday in February 2021, my mother joined us as we set out to visit this forgotten place. I had seen a few photographs beforehand and hoped to capture some of the countless details that seemed to fill the house.

After about an hour's drive, we reached the area and began looking for a place to park. Leaving our car in the golf club's parking lot didn't seem like the best idea - it tends to attract attention when you unload backpacks, tripods and safety boots instead of golf clubs before walking off in the opposite direction.

Fortunately, we found a small lay-by further down the road, allowing us to approach the property without drawing too much attention.

Getting inside turned out to be easier than expected. An open garden gate led onto the grounds, and the patio door of the house stood wide open.

Inside, the house presented a chaotic but fascinating scene. The former owner had clearly travelled extensively and seemed to have filled every room with souvenirs collected over many years. These were exactly the kind of details I had hoped to photograph. Unfortunately, previous visitors had already removed many of the most interesting items - and, perhaps even worse, had left everything in complete disarray. Judging by the empty bottles and other traces, the inevitable party crowd had also discovered the house long before we arrived.

Even so, there was still plenty to discover. According to local rumours, the entire house had been built almost entirely by its owner, a skilled craftsman. Whether or not the story is entirely true, the quality of the workmanship certainly supported it. Every room reflected remarkable dedication and attention to detail. The fireplace, the small bar, the staircase leading upstairs, the handcrafted shelving and the wood-panelled walls all suggested that someone had invested countless hours into creating a home that was both practical and deeply personal.

The upper floor contained piles of clothing along with a number of personal documents. Most revealed little about the former occupants, although a few provided brief glimpses into their lives. Among the papers were official documents dating back several decades, including records that reflected the turbulent political history of post-war Germany. Together with family papers and photographs, they offered fleeting glimpses into the lives of the people who had once called this place home - without ever revealing the full story.

A short distance from the main building stood a second structure that felt almost like a small house of its own. It contained a compact kitchen, sleeping quarters and a surprisingly spacious workshop. My guess is that it once served as a guest house, a hobby room or simply a private retreat - a place where its owner could spend time working on projects or enjoying a quiet evening.

We spent around ninety minutes exploring the property and came away with a collection of photographs that captured both its craftsmanship and its gradual decline.

Looking back, I sometimes regret being too hesitant to examine the personal belongings left behind. There is a significant difference between browsing production records in an abandoned factory and opening family photo albums or reading private letters and documents inside someone's former home. It feels far more personal—almost intrusive. Yet it is often those forgotten papers that preserve the final fragments of a place's history. Without them, many stories are simply lost forever.

To find out more about the history and to check out all the photos from this place, click the button below.

Tour Report: Farmhouse "Calendar"

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.

Tour Report: The Forest Ranger's Cottage

A week after our visit to the abandoned brickworks, we found ourselves heading out again on a sunny Sunday in February 2021. The snow had finally melted, temperatures had climbed back above freezing, and it was simply too nice a day to stay indoors.

At the time, Germany was still in the midst of its second strict COVID-19 lockdown, which had already been in place for almost two months. Travel restrictions meant we were not allowed to leave our federal state, so I started looking for abandoned places closer to home that we hadn't explored yet. Eventually, I came across two promising locations: a small cottage in the middle of a quiet village and a much larger farmhouse with a barn and several outbuildings.

The cottage turned out to be particularly interesting. During my research afterwards, I discovered that it had most likely been the home of the Holzvogt - the forester or woodland steward - of a nearby estate. Sitting right on the village's main road, however, parking anywhere near the property was out of the question.

Instead, we left our car in the parking lot of a temporarily closed restaurant on the edge of the village, where we met up with our good friend Elmar, who had travelled down from Hamburg. From there, we continued the rest of the way on foot.

The property itself wasn't fenced off and was easy to access, but unfortunately it had already become a dumping ground. In places like this, it's often difficult to tell which items actually belonged to the former occupants and which were discarded there long after the house had been abandoned.

Inside, the rooms were extremely cramped, so we took turns entering to give each other enough space to photograph the interior without getting in one another's way.

As expected, there were a few interesting details to discover, but the heavy clutter and the generally poor condition of the building meant that we only came away with a handful of worthwhile photographs.

Even so, it was a pleasant way to begin the day's exploration and, more importantly, a great opportunity to spend some time exploring with our good friend Elmar once again.

To find out more about the history and to check out all the photos from this place, click the button below.