A UK ghost town where homes sell for just £1 is littered with abandoned homes, fake doors and windows. In one of her UK investigations, Ellie Whitby, the content creator behind the EllieMarieTV channel on YouTube, set out to explore the former mining village of Horden in County Durham.

Once home to Horden Colliery – one of the largest mines in the UK before its closure in 1987 – Horden has suffered a tragic decline over the years and is now dotted with abandoned houses. In her 2024 video, Ellie and her friend were seen driving into Horden, the camera showcasing a street seemingly lined with boarded-up doors and windows; she decided to find a local resident to talk to. An unnamed local who’d lived in the town his entire life told Ellie “it’s not good”. 

As the camera panned to a fake window, he added: “It’s pathetic, man; look at them windows up there. They’re false doors; they’re just plastic things stuck over the top.”

He informed Ellie that somebody was indeed living in the property with “no electric, no water and nothing on”.

As she further explored the street, she claimed, “for every real house”, there were two abandoned homes with false windows and doors – once described by Durham County Council as “decorative skins”.

She described the set-up as “really strange” and highlighted how the post had been “shoved under the fake window” as postal workers had nowhere where they could deliver their letters.

Ellie also highlighted one property where an entire window was missing and approached what she described as the “worst fake door” of all as the camera was pointed through a hole.

An audible cough could be heard in the darkness of the building, suggesting the seemingly abandoned home was actually  occupied, and the explorers swiftly retreated to their car.

In 2015, Channel 4 reported that almost 160 homes in east Durham had been left empty, highlighting that the housing association Accent oversaw 361 properties in Horden and Blackhall.

Accent offered to sell 130 properties to Durham Council for the incredibly low price of £1, but it reportedly declined the offer. It claimed that even at this price, the repairs would be too costly.

Ellie tracked down the phone number of somebody who bought a property in Horden. They said: “So we bought the house as a development project. We bought it blind; I’ve never been anywhere near Horden in my life.

“The local yobs realised that there (was) work being done on it, broke in, stole the staircase; they took the floorboards”. They went on to allege that police “basically joked” that they shouldn’t buy “anything else in the area”.

In a final startling comment, the local resident from earlier, when asked what can be done to help the town, said: “Get all the good people out and nuke it.”

In reference to a separate video about Horden in 2024, Michael Kelleher, head of planning and housing at Durham County Council, told The Sun: “We’re pleased that the friendliness and warmth of the people of Horden was picked up on by the visitors in this video.

“We do of course recognise that the village, as is the case with many communities up and down the country, is not without its challenges.

“That is why we are committed to doing everything we can, with the resources available to us, to enable regeneration and support community projects for the benefit of local people.”