The Crooked Cottage in Hertfordshire has been abandoned for almost two decades, but still has a number of personal items left inside including food in the cupboards
The eerie, abandoned Crooked Cottage in rural Hertfordshire has remained untouched for nearly two decades. Once the home of a father and daughter, it has stood vacant since 2003, its past inhabitants long gone, leaving behind an air of mystery.
Inside, jars of preserved gooseberries still line the kitchen shelves, and beds stand ready, as if awaiting their occupants’ return. The father and daughter duo resided in this peculiar dwelling until his death in 1971.
The daughter, who never married, continued to live in the house she had shared with her father until she was moved into a care home 17 years ago. Since then, the cottage’s only inhabitants have been the insects and rodents that have claimed it as their own.
A calendar from 1956 hangs on the wall, adding to the sense of abandonment as the house continues to deteriorate. An ancient cooker, once the heart of the kitchen, hasn’t seen use since the last resident bid farewell to the cottage in 2003.
A rusty ladies’ bicycle leans against a wall inside the house, untouched for over 20 years. An open beer bottle sits on the kitchen counter, left undisturbed since the daughter’s final departure from her family home.
Upstairs, bedroom drawers are still stuffed full of clothes, now serving as nesting places for mice. A jewellery box rests on the dressing table, filled with dust-covered necklaces and rings – treasures that will likely never adorn anyone again.
Old family portraits, their colours drained by the relentless march of sunlight and time, adorn the walls of a cottage untouched by its former inhabitants for generations.
An ancient record player, cloaked in a shroud of dust, sits with a vinyl record atop it, poised for play, while others lean nearby, equally neglected.
Books, once treasured companions, now lie forsaken, enshrouded in cobwebs on side tables and window ledges.
An organ, its melodies long silenced, stands eerily mute, while kitchen scales, no longer used for measuring, are encrusted with rust.
Chairs that haven’t felt the warmth of human presence for years have become sanctuaries for spiders spinning their intricate webs.
Urban explorer Toby Batchelor has been the sole visitor to breach the threshold of this dwelling since its last occupant departed in 2003.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, he reflected: “What we see is someone’s life story, left to rot in this old, run-down cottage and there were lots of trinkets, family photos, furniture and items left behind which tell a story.”
The property, abandoned since its owner vacated, has seen its very foundations begin to crumble, earning it the moniker Crooked Cottage.
Batchelor observed: “The building itself was so tiny, like something out of a film – it had only one upstairs room and the whole building had began to be reclaimed by the elements.”
