Inside abandoned British ghost town left at nature's mercy for a decade that looks just like a scene out of Walking Dead

The Sun

05-07-2025

A YOUTUBER has discovered an eerie abandoned town which looks like a scene out of Walking Dead.
The creepy abandoned community was once home to thousands of British soldiers but now it is slowly decaying with buildings falling apart.
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An entire village, with hundreds of enormous four-bedroom homes, a barrack-like apartment complex, sports facilities and even a gas station, has been frozen in time for more than ten years and is now being reclaimed by nature.
The abandoned site looks like a typical British town, with many of the houses resembling English architecture and having their own garages, some of which are unlocked.
But it is located in Germany and was built during the height of Cold War by the British government.
JHQ Rheindahlen once housed up to 12,000 British personnel and their families between 1952 and 2013.
Colin Hodson, known online as the Bearded Explorer, said on his channel: "This place is so big it is pretty much its own city.
"I cannot believe this whole estate is completely abandoned.'
Wandering through the former town, which is now solely inhabited by red squirrels and deer, he compared it to being in a post-apocalyptic world where all human life has disappeared.
The 376-hectare haunting site is hidden by the dense forest, making it almost impossible to spot in summer.
During Colin's visit, the trees were bare, giving the audience an idea of what the garrison town would have looked like when it was inhabited.
The properties in the ghost town would fetch millions of pounds if they were sold today.
Although there is occasional evidence of graffiti and vandalism, the houses are mostly undamaged.
But Colin noted that despite the warm weather, the eerie buildings were oddly chilly inside.
Colin continued: 'This is actually incredible. This is probably the closest I've ever felt to be like walking around in The Walking Dead.
"This is exactly what it would look like if the world ended everyone disappeared nature would just literally take over everything.'
At its peak, the town had five British primary schools, a clothes shop, two post offices, a BP gas station and a NAAFI bookshop.
Plans were created to renovate the town to accommodate asylum seekers after the British Army formally returned it to the German government in December 2013.
But over a decade on, there has been little improvement.
In 2015, a group of Arab businessmen put forth plans to turn the property into a leisure park, but it seems that those plans have since been shelved.
The followers lamented the town's downfall, with many flooding to the comments.
One person wrote: "What a waste, this is criminal letting all these good houses go to rack & ruin."
Another one said: "This is very high quality accommodation and still in reasonable condition.
"It probably wouldn't take too much to refurbish and either use as social housing, or just sell off."
A third person added: "I lived there for over 6 years as my father was military. It was an absolutely brilliant place back in the day. So so sad to see it like this now."
Colin only scratched the surface of the enormous territory and plans to return to the site to explore it further.