Wetfloor.co.uk
Articles
Riber Castle
April 25th, 2006 - 2:42pm
One of the dominant presences in Shane Meadows' recent film "Dead Man's Shoes" is an eerie ruined castle, set at the top of a hill overlooking the small northern town where the film's horror unfolds. Glimpsed occasionally above the bleak streets throughout the film, the castle is introduced properly in the terrifying final scenes. A Victorian gothic shell set in the grounds of a nameless, disused leisure attraction, it looks like an urban explorer's dream: remote, unknown, scary, and the setting of brutal - if fictional - events. Riber Castle was the perfect place for my sister and her boyfriend to take me when I visited them at Christmas.
Published on urbex.co.uk, Fri 14 Jan, 2005 [Link]
Riber Castle is a steep climb from the town on winding country roads and not easily found. Charlotte and Danny had visited a few months earlier and knew the way; which ominously involved following old tourist signs for the wildlife park, crudely blacked-out with thick paint, and turning right by a lonely, disused petrol station. After parking the car and a short walk through a quiet village, we came to the locked castle gates. A sign behind announced that the grounds were for sale, but the phone number had been blacked out - whether because it had been sold or because no-one was interested, I don't know.
Danny led us round the high chainlink fence that surrounded the castle to the side overlooking Matlock, where a hole - the result of neglect rather than infiltration - led us into the grounds. Here we were in the shadow of the castle itself, a massive, crumbling and completely hollow Victorian mock-gothic stately home, covered in Keep Out and Danger signs. On this freezing December afternoon we were completely alone, but Danny and my sister said last time they were here there were a few similar-minded young explorers about. "Dead Man's Shoes" has unsurprisingly been a hit in the area, and no doubt led a few locals to a previously ignored local site.
Of more interest than the castle itself are the abandoned grounds. Riber Castle Wildlife Park was in the past a now thankfully rare provincial English phenomenon - a privately run zoo. Operating at near bankruptcy for many years, it had a reputation for cruelty and neglect, eventually closing down in September 2000. Danny led us through a low, dark doorway into a dusty hall, formerly the zoo's cafe. Propped up in the middle of the room was a blackboard covered in animal species and prices - what sticks in my mind most is "8 ocelots £70 each". This was where the zoo's animals were finally auctioned off, presumably to anyone who had the cash. It was a sad sight.
Corridors led off into dusty rooms, littered with broken glass and bits of furniture. I went off on my own to soak up the creepy atmosphere. The Nature Room was surrounded by empty fish tanks or vivariums set in rotting MDF panelling. Most were empty, a couple still had rocks and bits of driftwood in, one held a tatty baseball cap, another an empty mug. Any information about the animals kept there had been hastily torn down - glass-fronted notice boards had been smashed open, the glass still littering the floor, drawing pins stuck into corners of torn paper inside.
A doorway led into a courtyard ringed with cages; a raised pool, frozen and littered with beer cans, at the centre. Some of the cages, only a few feet square, held a tyre swinging on a rope - presumably for monkeys. The floor of one cage was littered with cigarette ends and empty lager cans. I could picture some lone drinker sat swinging in the tyre, gazing at the dereliction - I can't think of a more depressing place to get pissed.
The grounds were made up of endless rows of cages, shoddily built from planks, chipboard, MDF and chicken wire, erected amongst and on top of the stone enclosures of more prosperous times. Parts of it, like the aviaries, were completely overgrown with tall grasses and bushes, probably the fruits of spilt birdseed. I caught up with Charlotte and Danny and they showed me a large wooden shed with a swinging door. Inside were a table and four plastic chairs stood on a straw-covered floor. Whatever meeting went on in there, Danny said, I don't want to know what it was about.
Later they took me to the tiny stone outhouse where the horrific climax of "Dead Man's Shoes" was filmed. We stuck our heads through the foot-square window and made the appropriate noises, but the atmosphere of the place was getting to us and we decided it was time to leave. Walking back to the hole in the fence, we spotted an England flag hanging limply from a ruined outhouse. "Welcome home from Iraq", it read. The remnant of a clandestine party for returning squaddies? It seemed like a strange place to hold one.
Back in the village we noticed a few signs tacked to lampposts: "Keep Riber Rural", going on to explain that a company was applying to turn the castle into flats, and its grounds into a housing estate. The signs were old and faded, and this coupled with the blacked-out telephone number on the For Sale sign at the main gate had me wondering if the deal had fallen through.
I felt sad that this very eerie abandoned place might not be there much longer, but at the same time a bit stupid for thinking it was desirable to keep it in its present state. The signs went on to say that there were other ways of saving this Derbyshire landmark - but without its disturbing grounds, for me it would be just another stoney ruin. I hope it stays as it is, at least for a while yet - the very next day I picked up a digital camera in the sales. I want to go back soon and get a proper record of what is possibly the weirdest, creepiest place I've explored yet.