Tales of the Urban Explorer: St Hilda's

We seem to have been doing a lot of Mills lately, and there are more to come so if you are not a Mill person then you had better find your Urbex reads elsewhere.

Except there isn’t an ‘elsewhere’ and it’s still just me doing these.

One of these days somebody else might just write something with this tag that is complete. I can only hope.

I was alerted to St Hilda’s in Rochdale by this post on the premiere Urbex site in the UK.

If you read this, the poster claims that he fled in fear due to knocking sounds under the floorboards and one of his photographs being blocked by ‘something’.

How could I resist such a fantastic place? It had to be done, and so last week my henchman @goblinknackers joined me for some church hunting.

There’s a little history here from yet another report, this journalist describing it as ‘frozen in time’.

The church was built in 1931 and closed in 1998. 21 years of abandonment usually doesn’t bode very well for a building that looks like it’s made from wood, so we didn’t know what to expect.

Hollingworth is a popular tourist place in the summer and that makes parking hard work. We had to park literally half a mile away from where we thought St Hilda's was. What a pain in the arse.

Finding it was another problem as it not exactly roadside. One of those drones may well come in handy for scouting places out in the future.

After a little searching, we came across St Hilda's which is located next door to a detached property. I was wary of the neighbours coming out and giving us a hard time so I walked to the RIGHT of the church looking for a way in.

@goblinknackers, however, decided to walk down the LEFT side in full view of neighbourly aspiring eyes, bloody amateur!

Fortunately, there was nobody home and we both got safely inside without any busybodies interfering.

Getting in was a little dangerous as the floor is all broken up and ankles could well be sprained or broken if not issuing due care. Some hop, skipping and jumping is required and yours truly was up for that.

What a place this was! Partially open to the elements and yet just about stable enough to walk around in without fear of it collapsing on top of us and possible death. The church is made of wood and is the first building I have ever seen like it.

There’s no doubt it’s dangerous. A strong wind could possibly blow it down, and we could both see it tilting dangerously to one side.

I homed in on the musical instruments that had been left over 20 years ago. They were broken up and in a bad state but still intact.

We saw bibles, papers and a decent amount of personal items that had survived the many visits I presume from other explorers.

The flag had been torn down but not completely destroyed.

I peered down the length of the church listening for the sounds of zombies under the floorboards but could not hear a thing.

Some of the rooms had been completely trashed and I wasn’t going to go digging in this one. The floor was the main problem being in a state of collapse.

The pulpit was still intact but the inside was covered with all kinds of crap, I didn’t want to go near it.

The flowers could not possibly have been real ones, but I didn’t check.

Heading toward the front door (that was sealed) was the most unstable part of the building. The floor was collapsed in this corner as well as the roof. It’s not surprising really as our weather would simply dissolve the floor over time.

The far corner looked interesting with lots of books on the shelf but I ran into a little problem. The carpet started buckling and I frantically tried to find a beam to stabilise my weight.

I cautiously approached the corner after tentatively treading on what appeared to be a solid beam under the carpet. More bibles, some burnt and other literature were stacked up in the corner.

Had someone decided to burn the place down and then changed their mind?

One of my photographs ended up looking like this; was this the same entity that was blocking the photographs of the other explorer, or simply a close up of my pocket?

A couple of rooms next to the front door revealed a few cleaning materials and not much else.

My ears had been pricked all this time in anticipation of the undead crawling up through the floor. Would we be attacked by drooling, slavering hungry zombies?

I did hear noises quite often from the local pigeon population who were none too happy at our intrusion but that’s as far is it went.

Besides the cover shot, the outside of this unassuming church is not very photogenic unless you are partial to rust.

Just before we left and to the right of the sealed front door we noticed a flowerbed. Someone had been here planting flowers! That seemed downright strange.

You don’t see many like St Hilda’s; A wooden building with corrugated iron for support.

Its’ location being semi-remote has saved it from the numerous dickheads who would likely burn it down.

I hope it stays that way, it would be a big loss to see it burn up and be lost forever.

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