10 French Châteaux For Sale just in case You Win the Lottery

With talk of lottery jackpots reaching over a billion dollars these days, I’ve been having more frequent daydreams about what sort of French chateau I’d like to retire in. So, just in case, I took it upon myself to see what’s currently on the market. From ready-to-live in palaces to crumbling DIY projects, today I’ve made…

The ill-fated Abandoned French Chateau: Before & After

For those of you that have ever done any derelict digging of their own on the net, it’s likely you would have come across a photograph of this room with its impressive circular stained glass window and the decaying leather armchair sat facing it. This is the Chateau de Pont Remy Somme, also known…

Abandoned London Corner Store Revived with Squishy Cadburys and Fluffy Crisps

When I was a kid, I used to set up a make-believe grocery shop in my bedroom and have a whale of a time for hours on end, selling imaginary products to imaginary customers. Artist Lucy Sparrow has pretty much taken this childhood fantasy and made it real (and I’m pretty damn jealous). Meet Lucy,…

Welcome to Liberace’s Secret Parisian Palace of Kitsch

In 1972, Marie-Helene de Rothschild threw a surrealist dinner party at the family’s mansion in the suburbs of Paris. Dali was there of course, and Audrey Hepburn showed up with her head trapped inside a Magritte birdcage. It’s a night people still talk about more than 40 years later; up there with Studio 54’s legendary New Year parties…

Awakening the Giant: An Abandoned London Icon, Then & Now

Converted lofts, factories, hospitals- I’ve seen them all, but up until a couple of weeks ago I’d never have imagined a derelict 20th century power station would pose such an attractive location to set up home base. Yet here it is, Battersea’s iconic and inspired addition to the London property market, and you can see…

Alaska’s Eskimo Ghost Village on Stilts

For thousands of years, a community of Inupiat Eskimos lived, survived and thrived in one of the harshest environments in the world. This is King Island and these are the improbable cliff-hanging houses of Ukivok that a displaced community still calls home more than 50 years after its abandonment. (c) NOAA Photo Library In 1959, the…

This Ghost Town looks so Real it Fooled Half the Internet

“A small German town with a tricky name, which I immediately forgot. Somewhere in Eastern Germany. People have not lived here for a long time, and only occasionally tourists come to walk through the deserted, dilapidated streets.” In these photographs by Russian photographer Dmitry Chistoprudov, it looks like World War II ended just yesterday. And he almost…

A Brief Compendium of Abandoned Roads to Nowhere

This post doesn’t require much introduction, only a question. Why is the abandoned road always the most tempting one to take? I found an awesome Flickr group dedicated entirely to disused roads, so let’s take a drive down memory lane… Lead image: Old Burroughs Road Bridge, Closed truss bridge over the Hushpuckena River in Bolivar County, Mississippi. The…

Uncovering the Ghost of an Iconic Department Store, the “Bloomingdales” of Paris

For ten years, one of the world’s most iconic and historic department stores sat empty along the banks of the Seine in Paris; an imposing ghostly shell of former retail splendour, a giant sleeping elephant in the room occupying prime real estate in the heart of the city. When I heard that renovation works were…

A Backstage Pass to Hidden London

I lived in London for twenty-five years and never got to see the inside of the 1930s decommissioned Battersea Power Station. Nobody did! But the guy that took this picture (above), Peter Dazeley– he even got them to switch on the control room’s art deco lights for him. And it turns out, getting this kind…