From ancient hamlets to wartime evacuations, the British countryside is dotted with ghost towns – half-hidden places, abandoned through natural disasters or the actions of human beings.
Each village, town and homestead has a sad tale to tell. Many sites can still be visited today if you know where to look.
Medieval remains
Britain is home to thousands of deserted medieval villages known as DMVs.
To qualify for the title a settlement must have been abandoned during the Middle Ages while leaving visible traces behind. These may include earthworks, buried foundations or cropmarks visible from the air.
Some places still have a few houses standing. If more than three are inhabited the settlement is classed as an SMV, or Shrunken Medieval Village.
England alone contains around 3,000 DMVs. The best known is Wharram Percy in North Yorkshire. Archaeologists excavated the site extensively between 1948 and 1990 and today visitors can still see the ruined church, house platforms and former fishponds.
But Wharram Percy is only one of hundreds of lost places across Britain. Many remain hidden in fields, valleys and woods. Quiet reminders of communities that vanished centuries ago.
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Hampton-On-Sea, Kent
Poor old Hampton was already in decline when the sea began to claim it.
The settlement started life in 1864 as a speculative seaside development created by an oyster fishery company. It never really prospered and coastal erosion gradually undermined the fragile shoreline.
By 1916 most residents had left. Within a few years large parts of the village had fallen into the sea.
One of its most colourful residents was Edmund Reid, the former head of CID in Whitechapel during the Jack the Ripper investigation.
Reid moved to the village after retirement and became its unlikely champion. He renamed his house Reid’s Ranch and decorated it with painted battlements and cannon.
As the sea crept closer he displayed a cannonball in his garden, flew a Union flag and sold postcards of the vanishing village from a small kiosk.
Eventually even he had to admit defeat. In 1915 Reid abandoned his home and moved to nearby Herne Bay.
All that remains of Hampton now is a tiny bit of the original pier, the Hampton Inn, and the rocky arc of the settlement’s ruined coastal defences… and possibly the ghost of Edmund.
Mardale Green, Cumbria
Mardale Green once stood in a peaceful valley at the head of Haweswater.
In the 1930s Manchester Corporation decided to expand the reservoir that supplied water to the city. The village was cleared and most buildings were demolished by the Royal Engineers.
The small church held its final service in 1937 before being dismantled. Its stones and windows were reused to build a water tower that still stands beside the reservoir.
When water levels fall during very dry summers the ruins of the old village sometimes reappear. Visitors have spotted walls, farm buildings and even the old village bridge emerging from the mud.
Hallsands, Devon
Hallsands was once a small but thriving fishing community along the south Devon coast.
For years shingle had been dredged offshore to help build the naval dockyard at Devonport. Villagers warned that removing the natural beach defences would leave them exposed to the sea.
Their fears proved correct.
During a violent storm in January 1917 the sea surged through the village. By the following morning 29 houses had been destroyed.
No one died but the settlement was effectively finished.
Today the site itself is unsafe due to landslips, but a viewing platform on the cliffs allows visitors to look down at the ruined cottages slowly being reclaimed by the sea.
Derwent, Derbyshire
Another drowned village lies beneath the waters of Ladybower Reservoir.
The valley of Derwent was flooded during the 1940s to provide water for the growing cities of the Midlands.
Most of the buildings were demolished before the waters closed over them, but the historic packhorse bridge was determined to be a monument of national importance and was removed stone by stone and rebuilt at nearby Howden Reservoir.
Derwent’s church spire was also meant to be saved as a memorial but instead it was dynamited in December 1947 on safety grounds.
A few of the houses still survive above the waterline and the severe drought of 1976 revealed the rest of the village when reservoir levels fell drastically.
It’s reappeared several times since then during dry spells most recently in 2018 when a man had to be rescued after getting stuck in extremely thick mud around the ruins.
Dunwich, Suffolk
Dunwich is perhaps Britain’s most famous lost town.
It’s hard to believe this sleepy little East Anglian village once stood proud as the capital of the Kingdom of the Eastern Angles, at one time even matching London for size.
It was a seat of power for the Anglo-Saxon bishops for centuries, an international port, and the Domesday book of 1086 puts the population at over 3,000.
But from the thirteenth century onwards violent storms and coastal erosion steadily destroyed the town. Much of medieval Dunwich now lies beneath the North Sea.
Today only fragments remain above land including the ruins of the Franciscan friary and the Leper Hospital of St James.
Local legend claims that on certain tides the bells of the lost churches can still be heard ringing beneath the waves.
Spooky!
Imber, Wiltshire
In 1943 the residents of Imber received an unexpected letter from the War Office.
They were given just 47 days to leave their homes so the surrounding land could be used for military training ahead of the D Day invasion.
Most villagers believed the move would only be temporary.
It was not.
Imber still lies within the Salisbury Plain training area and remains under the control of the Ministry of Defence. The village is usually closed but it opens to the public on a few days each year.
Stanford, Norfolk
The area just north of Thetford suffered the same fate as Imber when it was taken over by the British Army during World War II for training purposes.
The villages of Buckenham Tofts, Langford, Stanford, Sturston, Tottington and West Tofts were all evacuated to create what is now known as the Stanford Training Area. It’s still in use today and is famous as the location for many scenes in the BBC comedy series Dad’s Army.
The parish church of All Saints still stands, fitted with blast-proof sheeting and surrounded by wire fencing to protect it from ongoing military manoeuvres.
Tyneham, Dorset
The instruction in 1943 to move out came as a shock to the 155 residents, most of whom had to become farmhands in the nearby Salisbury Plain area. As with Imber, their demands to be able to return when the war ended came to nothing.
Several buildings still stand including the church, school and farm buildings. These have been restored and now contain displays telling the story of the village and its former residents.
The village is open to visitors on selected weekends and bank holidays when the nearby firing ranges are inactive.
Binnend, Fife
The village grew up at the end of the 19th century to house workers at the nearby shale extraction works, and for those who worked in the associated oil and wax factories.
But when the mines and factories closed people began to drift away. It had a minor resurgence in World War 1 when the houses were used for Admiralty staff and the school was used as accommodation for troops. Its population declined again in the 1920s with most houses being used as holiday homes.
Binnend Village was formally closed in 1931 because it had no piped water, gas, electricity or sanitation, but still some residents stayed on. In 1952, two couples named the Hoods and McLarens remained in the village, where they lived in adjacent houses. The McLarens moved away when a council house became available in Burntisland. The last inhabitants, Mr and Mrs Hood, remained until Mrs Hood died in 1954 and George Hood (then aged 74) moved away to live with his son.
Today, there is a walking path around the deserted settlement – ruins of the High Binn remain, but all traces of Low Binn are gone.
Temperance Town, Cardiff
Temperance Town once stood close to Cardiff railway station.
The land belonged to Colonel Edward Wood, a strict teetotaller who insisted that alcohol could never be sold there. The settlement took its name from this unusual condition.
By the 1930s the area had become overcrowded and impoverished. It was demolished in 1937 as part of redevelopment plans linked to the railway.
Residents were moved elsewhere in the city and today no visible trace remains.
Dylife, Powys
The remote village of Dylife was once a busy centre for lead mining.
Mining in the surrounding hills dates back to Roman times and by the nineteenth century the village had chapels, shops, pubs and a school.
But by 1901 the last mine had closed and the population moved to more secure work elsewhere. Some stayed on for a while but eventually the school closed in 1925. The last pub, the Star, remains in business but only the two chapels remain today.
Tide Mills, Sussex
On the Sussex coast near Seaford lie the haunting ruins of Tide Mills.
The settlement grew around a tidal mill built in the eighteenth century. Workers’ cottages and workshops soon followed and for a time the community flourished.
Wealthy mill owner Thomas Barton was the first to harness the power of the River Ouse in the 1760s but by 1801 it was in the hands of William Catt who was responsible for its rapid growth and the community of around 60 workers and their families which grew up around the powerhouse.
Once the railway line from Newhaven to Seaford was opened, a siding was constructed running between the cottages, enabling large quantities of flour to be transported to Newhaven, and then on to London by sea.
The mill stopped working around 1900 but the villagers stayed on, turning their hands to helping out on local farms. A racehorse trainer set up stables there for a short while, using the nearby sea strand as a place to exercise them and Chailey Heritage charity established a small hospital on the beach, for those who needed sea air to recover from illness or operations.
But by the thirties the village was run down and unsanitary and was condemned as unfit for habitation. The last residents forcibly removed in 1939 and the area given over to war-training.
Today the river’s course has changed and the Ouse estuary is a nature reserve so a stroll through the ruined buildings is rewarded with birds, butterflies and beautiful blooms.
At evening-time and on dark days it’s an eerie place but on a bright summer’s day, there’s a gentle sea breeze, the call of skylarks, distant laughter and the buzz of bees bumbling in the mallow flowers.
• Read more about Tide Mills’ sad history
How to visit Britain’s ghost towns
Many of Britain’s ghost towns can still be explored today, although some require a little planning.
Several lie within nature reserves, farmland or protected historic sites, so visitors should always stick to marked paths and respect private land. In places such as Tide Mills or the medieval villages scattered across England, the remains are fragile earthworks rather than obvious ruins.
A few locations are only accessible at certain times.
Villages such as Imber in Wiltshire and Tyneham in Dorset sit inside military training areas and are normally closed to the public. However the Ministry of Defence opens them on selected weekends and public holidays each year.
Other ghost towns appear only when conditions are right. During very dry summers the outlines of drowned settlements such as Derwent and Mardale Green can sometimes emerge when reservoir levels fall.
Coastal sites come with their own hazards. Places like Hallsands are affected by erosion and unstable cliffs, so viewing platforms and marked routes are usually the safest way to see them.
But with a little research and a good pair of walking boots, these lost places offer a fascinating glimpse into Britain’s past. Wander through their ruins and you may find yourself standing where entire communities once lived, worked and hoped for the future.
If you know of another ghost town in Britain, let us know. There are far more lost villages hidden in the landscape than most people realise.
Some images reproduced under Creative Commons Licence
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