Tales of the Urban Explorer: Froghall Farm

It looked like a complete wreck, and worse.., there was a big bloody fence between us and ‘it’.

Was it even worth it trying to get over one of the handful of 'standard keep out' fences? I recognized the green spiky type. I know all of them now, one becomes an expert in fencing.., quite sad really.

This type is not to be toyed with and can remove your man parts if not careful. It's better to look for breaks along the edges that can exist but be quite invisible.

We had driven off-course to visit ‘Froghall Farm’, it was hosted within a small village in the middle of nowhere that once boasted a huge industrial site, most of it flattened and on the edge was this..., what you see.

‘Let’s walk around and see if we can approach it from a different angle?’, I suggested to @anidiotexplores who was dying to lose his balls to the spiky deterrent facing us.

'The other side' proved remarkably easier, with some derpy-looking building thrown in for free.

...'there was something down there, and we.. were going to have a look no matter how shit it looked'...

I checked some old Google maps of this area and noted it's been like this for at least a decade. Fuck knows what it used to be.

Years before, the land surrounding this burnt-out ex-toilet shed used to be full of parked cars. I am guessing this was the workers from the old, 'Thomas Bolton Copper Factory', an old factory demolished in 2011.

Making a note to make our way to the original target, we walked into a fire-bombed mess, typical of something that's been neglected for so long.

As this was almost next to the aforementioned flattened site, I can only assume it was related, long ago.

Sinks as well as a solitary pisser tell me it could have been a bathroom of sorts for blokes. As for the rest, it was a blackened mess, strewn with miscellaneous graffiti of varying quality.

For something so remote, I was surprised to discover a little decent art work, but the style was not one I recognised.

After finding not a shred of humanity left, we waded through some long grass up to the 'house' and found it decidedly easier than fighting with that massive fence.

We came across it quickly but were most disappointed to find it completely sealed.

Something this isolated surely had been compromised? It wasn’t going to be so, and noting the nearby scaffolding, someone had at least been attempting a restoration and likely had run out of cash.

Was this the old mansion of Mr. Bolton before his business went to shit? There could well be jewels in there, priceless ones.

The surrounding outhouses were numerous but as this was mid-summer and nobody had been here for literally years, most were overgrown with prickly brambles and off-limits.

The chair had seen better days and stood patiently waiting for someone's arse to sit in it. As tired as I was, it was a tad dusty and grimy for me so passed.

The buildings we did manage to infiltrate looked similar to the toilet house, empty and without anything to see. They were even void of graffiti; very disappointing.

A fireplace indicates humans did live here, and this wasn’t some old cow shed and what we were walking on was not vintage cow shit, but I could be wrong.

With some effort, we made our way over the scaffolding, which was incredibly awkward.

Thick patches of nettles and those wayward tall brambles were in our faces all the way. Managing to reach the other side of the house, we spotted a gap on the second floor.

This would have meant climbing the scaffolding which in regular circumstances could have been achievable.

By this time, we were pissed off and the thought of reaching the base level of the climb was too much. Too many cuts, skin rashes, and the thought of a possibly renovated interior were in our heads.

On crawling through that upper window, what if there was no floor and a sheer drop into yet more derpy bliss?

‘Fuck this man, let’s bail and get into Stoke proper’.., were my thoughts likely said out loud.

So far, Stoke-on-Trent had been the king or derps, possibly eclipsing Bradford for the trophy. Grumbling we backtracked thinking if there was a hole in that green fence we could be out in a jiffy.

This is what you get sometimes when looking for those gems. A big pile of shit!

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