The lone home is the only surviving reminder of a doomed ghost village. Picture: Google Maps
The lone surviving house in a doomed ghost village has found a new owner despite more than 100 neighbouring properties being demolished amid landslide fears.
The small cottage, now the only reminder of a once-thriving village of 600 people, had been listed for just AUD $2 before eventually selling for AUD $94,000.
It is the last remnant of the mining community at Troedrhiwfwch village in Wales after residents were forcibly removed 50 years ago and their homes demolished.
Even the streets throughout the doomed village were ripped up as local authorities scrambled to relocate residents, believing a nearby mountain could collapse at any moment and wipe out the entire community.
It is a landslide that never came.
Even the village streets were demolished when authorities moved in. Picture: Google Maps
Auctioneer Sean Roper said why the lone home in the village was spared the bulldozer when all others were flattened was unknown.
“Why this otherwise ordinary three-bedroom house survived while all the others didn’t, remains a bit of a mystery but it may be a story a new owner of the property may wish to unravel,” he told The Sun.
“It’s a vastly overused word but this a truly unique sale for all manner of reasons – the main one being that the house offers a real-life connection to a now vanished community where a population of more than 600 men, women and children and their pets, once thrived.
“The lone house is a curious link to another age.”
The village included a church, chapel, school, library, pub, post office and shop as well as about 94 homes.
Only the village post office and the newly-sold home survived.
The village was a once-thriving community of 600 people. Picture: Supplied
Concerns were first raised for Troedrhiwfwch in the 1930s when locals realised the village’s sloping land was beginning to move.
By the 1950s curiosity about the land movement and grown into fears of a major landslide and people began to leave.
The school was closed in the 1980s and the local council moved in shortly after with bulldozers.
Mr Roper said 230 bids were lodged amid huge community interest in the lonely cottage.
“The sale of this house really grabbed the imagination and following of a large number of people ahead of the sale, attracting huge media interest both at home and abroad,” he said.
“Whatever the circumstances this sale offers an unrepeatable opportunity for someone to acquire a property with a wonderfully amazing history.”
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