August 18, 2005

The ghost village of Imber It's not easy to find the "ghost village" of Imber. On maps its location is a great big blank space, and it doesn't appear on any road signs. You only know you're in the right area when you spot a single "Tank Crossing" sign about a mile south of West Lavington...
posted by dng 19 years ago
  • Very creepy. I wonder they don't just relocate the graves and keep people out altogether.
  • This is good. Having your home stolen forever for soldiers, not so good.
  • ))) for this great post! Suddenly, however, these "dummies" had begun some sort of exercise, resulting in the sound of gunshots swiftly followed by (acted, hopefully) screams of pain, and an instructor shouting "You're dead!" at the unlucky victims. Creepy indeed!
  • I like these little photo essays of out of the way places. Nice post.
  • It's not easy to find the "ghost village" of Imber. Not true
  • The sign warns tanks of mud and potholes, not warns of tanks, mud, and potholes. Notice the colon in "Tanks: mud and potholes".
  • Blurfl? Are British tanks so fragile they have to be careful not to get muddy? or run over potholes?
  • Yes :)
  • No, no, it's just expressing the current armoured vehicle to puddle ratio.
  • TANKS are to MUD as POTHOLES are to _______?
  • Hole pots? Well, we seem to have uncovered a vast inefficiency at the British Ministry of Road Signage. Someone needs to invekstigate!
  • Excellent find, dng!
  • I was involved in a direct action movement in the 80s protesting the siting of cruise missiles in the UK. We used to track the convoys once they'd come out of Greenham and attempt to stop them as they drove off to Salisbury plain, where they'd deploy for a week or so before heading back again through a gauntlet of us hippies and ne'er-do-wells. We snuck through Imber on a midnight clear a couple of times in the course of our shenanigans. This bring back memories.
  • I'd like to run round there shouting.
  • There is a ghost town similar to this one in Colorado that I used to pass all the time when I was moving. It was somewhere between Breckinridge and Leadville, I believe, and it was abandoned when the local mine went dry. Never got a chance to go in, but god, I wanted to, and still do. I always have a special place in my heart for these haunting shells of towns. If you like ghost towns, Colorado has many, many of them, especially in the mountains. Some are really very old and accessible only by hike, bike, or exceptionally sturdy vehicles. Sweet post.