Tales of the Urban Explorer: The Hippy House

It was well over a year ago. We had snuck up to ‘The Hippy House’, and climbed over a big gate only to be met with an angry ageing hippy who could not believe we had scaled his impenetrable barrier.

...'We do happen to have legs… that work'...

The Hippy House was built in 15th century and has it's own Wikipedia page. I am loathe to name it, although it probably off the radar by now. It doesn't strike me as a 15th century property, from the days when Knights were bold and (honour meant much more to a man than life - Genesis.)

A few explorers had visited his property and after a chat, assuring him we were not here to burn his scaffolded house down, he had visibly calmed and worse still, was ready to join us exploring for the rest of the day.

‘Why do we have to meet such weird people, we just want to take some bloody photographs?’

Returning to ‘The Lair of the Giant Spiders' did not feel comfortable with me. Word on the street was that Hippy had passed away, his wife had moved out leaving the house empty and it was now on heavy 'TourBus' rotation.

Furthermore, Hippy's son had boarded the place up, which was proving to be a futile exercise as once the bus disembarked there always seemed to be one 'explorer' with a handy sledgehammer to remove the back door again forcibly.

I am getting increasingly disturbed by this behaviour. While technically we can enter if there is an access point, the thought of entering someone’s house who has recently deceased makes me morally uneasy, especially if I knew them, and this was kind of true.

How would I feel if it was my parent, and their house (and my legacy) was constantly being opened up and wrecked?

@anidiotexplores was insisting we return, and that it was ‘probably’ open if visited imminently.

It was just as well, as the day would have been a complete turd session if we had vetoed the re-visit.

Was anyone about, it was deathly quiet…, but it always is.

If this ‘son’ was not a 30-stone lard arse with a beer flap down to his knees and who could only waddle…, ‘son’ could feasibly give chase and probably could not be reasoned with.

There would be little or no time to explain his late father was a ‘budding explorer’, while pinned to the floor and we would be receiving a severe dose of ‘chinning’ at the very least.

...'the impossible to climb gate was actually extremely climbable, even for me'...

Noting the scaffolding had been removed, we once again climbed the ‘impossible to climb gate’, and crept to the house, ignoring the stash of derelict cars which were rather more derelict than the last time we saw them.

The back door was open, forcibly removed by the incredible Hulk once again. Lamenting my chance to meet an angry green muscle-bound monster with yellow eyes, I stepped inside.

We didn't have to go very far to decide that the late Hippy was a hoarder. Stuff was strewn everywhere on the ground floor, and I didn't know where to look.

Lots of certificates, and issued by 'Senior Service Ltd', which appears to now be a dissolved company and unrelated to the extra strong butt-free cigarettes that my late grandfather used to chain-smoke.

1933 and that's George V if I am not mistaken. My misguided youth nerdy hobby of philately does come in handy occasionally.

Cow registration documents, the cow was born in 1982. I was more interested in the names of the owners, a certain 'B.Steele' is probably Hippy.

'The Dandy' - not my favourite growing-up comic, but it was tolerable.

‘The Hippy House’ was relatively sturdy with a few caveats such as this big hole close to one of the sets of stairs.

@anidiotexplores had ascended, so I figured downstairs would be the first course, and what a course it would be.

Nice organ, and it probably still works though I prefer regular keyboards. They always remind me of 'Microsoft Natural Keyboards', and what an abortion those turned out to be.

There were a few car books which would explain the mass of vehicles on the grounds of 'The Hippy House', otherwise this is a varied selection of mostly non-fiction.

With ‘Dancing to the Gramophone’ and ‘The Black and White Minstrel Show’, I figured there would be a distinct lack of Black Sabbath poking around in the record collection.

Ladies Roller Blades, could a bloke wear those and get away with it?

You can't deny Hippy was no technophobe. Only geeks had collections of 5.25-inch floppies which hark back to the early-mid-eighties. There could even be 'warez' on these.

Oh yes, very geeky behaviour.

Despite looking thoroughly ransacked, there seemed to be plenty of value items left. I guess ghetto blasters are not in much demand anymore.

‘Miss Barbara Lane', passed her test in 1973, and should be 85 years old as I write this. You can figure it out from the details on the license. She's not without money either, good old income bonds.

More vinyl and once again, not to my tastes, as extensive as they are.

A nice Mahogany cabinet, no doubt bustling with even more clutter, as though there wasn't enough to look at already.

Hippy did like his gadgets; old technology was coming out of the woodwork.

Music was part of his life, as well as dowdy grey trousers.

Why be content with one amplifier when you can have several?

He was no dummy, all these contemporary literature books as well as ‘Pig Farming’ manuals.

A wine drinker, and an artist, he had a crack at everything. It's little wonder he wanted to come with us exploring derelict buildings.

It was time to have a look around upstairs, and what a grand set of them they were.

The higher echelons of ‘The Hippy House’, consisted of one enormous, long room, just as cluttered as everywhere else.

Miss Lane, though she didn’t look anything like this emerging from the house screaming at us during the previous visit.

The bloke in the top right photograph is Hippy' I do recognise him, rest in peace dude. You were alright, just eccentric.

Please feel free to have a read, if you find the text legible.

I have no doubt this type of equipment has value but was surprised to see it still there. The visiting thieves were obviously not on form.

Mahogany panels everywhere, 'The Hippy House’, can be saved and unlike most other places I visit was not unduly damp and sodden. A coat of arms etched into the panelling, just lovely.

Now, who was that? That's a lot of microphones in front of you… old lady. Was she important?

An August 1963 edition of the TV Times. TV did exist but was only for the rich, not that I can remember.

Even better was this copy of the 'Daily Mail' from May 1926 boasting the christening of Princess Elizabeth, the future queen. Wow.., these kinds of finds DO get my attention. If you don't already know our ex-monarch died in 2022, aged 96.

As always I love the advertisements from these times, though sadly there are no cigarette ones claiming that smoke and nicotine are good for your health.

I wouldn't have minded lounging around here on that mini sofa, life must have been good.

Relatively speaking, it’s a recent calendar, at only 64 years old.

We already know one of them was interested in art, it's a lot better than I could do but that's not saying much.

'Bernard Shaw', it's all very political, and I admit had to google this dude to figure out what he was about. Did they read these, or simply collect them?

One of them was a great reader, as I was once upon a time.

Buy a dozen pairs, all the same, and there will always be shoes within arm's reach.

Old lady underwear... you know what…, I don’t really want to know.

An amazing amount of ‘stuff’ people leave when they pop their clogs.

'Firm of Film Enterprises' - how intriguing. What was Hippy up to during the '80s, and why was he handing out cheques like no tomorrow, that never left him? Brian Steele, that was him.

A proper audit of ‘The Hippy House' could have taken all day, enough time for 'son' to appear and decapitate us. It's something worth considering when fucking around too long in Time Capsules.

We spent maybe 30 minutes inside and that's a long time for us.

Today, ‘The Hippy House’ is monitored by a mobile police unit. ‘Son’ must have a shit load of money. Good luck to him sieving through this lot.

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