A seaside town that was once home to a thriving coal mining industry is now rammed with boarded-up homes up for sale for as little as £5,000. Horden, in County Durham, has a long and proud history of coal mining and gained fame across the continent for its workers’ tireless efforts.

The Horden Colliery, launched in 1900, set a European record for the most coal mined in a single day on May 9 1930, when it extracted 6,758 tonnes of it.

Five years later, the colliery’s employment number peaked, with more than 4,000 people working in it.

The operation was eventually shut down in February 1987, as the coal mining industry in the UK fizzled out.

Today, the town looks completely different, with some streets left almost deserted after people moved away leaving homes boarded up, the Daily Star reported. 

YouTuber David Burnip, who goes by the screen name Wandering Turnip, recently visited the town to see first-hand how it has been transformed since the late 1980s.

One local who spoke with the content-maker said the town has “gone down the banks since the collieries finished”. 

Asked by the YouTuber whether the town used to be busy, he added: “You had all the working men’s clubs, and all the public houses. There is practically none left here now.”

Drugs, the man went on to claim, have “taken hold”, and the problem doesn’t affect just younger people but also some of those in their 40s and 50s.

The YouTuber also visited some of the currently vacant properties available in the town.

The cost of properties in certain areas of the seaside town offers an example of how the once-booming town has changed.

In late May, four properties were listed on RightMove as up for auction at a starting price of £5,000.

The starting auction price of other terraced homes available on the website ranged between £15,000 and £40,000.

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Among the properties recently sold is one in Tees Street that went for £30,250 – despite it being bought for almost double the price in 2006.

Another, in Seventh Street, was sold in February for £22,750, while four years ago it was sold for £36,000.

Not all the homes that recently hit the market, however, went for such a low price.

One in Rosedale Terrace was being sold for almost £98,000 in February – whilst it was previously bought in 1996 for £23,500, RightMove showed.

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