Berkyn Manor was originally owned by John Berkyn, the house has had many owners including the poet John Milton who lived here with his father in the mid 1600′s. The manor was rebuilt by Edward Tyrell; the Remembrancer of the city of London in 1848. Earnest Rayner was the last owner from 1945 up to his death in 1987 aged 96.
Urban Exploring never ceases to amaze me. Big old manor houses never really appealed to me until I started seeing a few reports popping up for this place. The house itself still doesn’t really interest me but stepping inside is like going back in time. The artefacts which litter the hugely varying rooms are full of character and tales of days gone by. Some things we found date back almost 100 years, astonishing! I always find myself imagining what life would have been like when the places I visit were live.
So, it was an early start for us. It had been decided that myself, MarkyMark, InnerCityRob and Evil Genius would head in this direction and tick a few sites off our “to do” list. This place was the primary reason for the trip but we decided to tackle a couple of smaller places first. We heard through the grape vine that Berkyn was swarming with police a couple of hours before we got there for reasons unknown but decided to take a look anyway.
It was pissing down when we got there, I mean absolutely chucking it down with rain. We’d heard tales and seen pictures of the extra special security and didn’t fancy our chances. We made our way round to a field and found what we thought was the bull, and then saw 4 more. Oh shit! We gingerly made our way across the field and they all legged it. “That was easy” we thought. That was, until we spotted the house and found the real bull. Holy shit, that thing is massive. Thankfully for us it was more interested in sitting under a tree out of the rain until it saw us leg it across the field and over the fence. He soon came to see what was happening. We made our way inside and got cracking with the pictures. This place is an absolute death trap, floors are falling in all over the place and a big chunk of the library ceiling fell in while we were there so if you plan a visit, mind the floors (or what’s left of them).
