Horden features on YouTube TV show after being compared to North Korea

Horden was once a thriving mining town with a flourishing community.

But after the colliery was shut down in 1987, the town fell into disarray as workers and their families were forced to leave in search of work.

YouTuber David Burnip, who posts videos of some of the UK’s cheapest homes for his channel Wandering Turnip, set out to investigate and found rows of abandoned homes with boarded-up doors and windows.

Read more: Durham man gets cancer diagnosis after struggle for NHS dentist

“Four thousand people were working at the coal mine, living here, spending their money, and bringing up families,” he said in a clip titled ‘£20,000 Houses In A Boarded Up Seaside Town!’.

Now, however, it’s a different story.

“It’s so apocalyptic-looking,” he added. “[It’s] almost eerie.

“I can’t imagine anyone ever wanting to live in one of these, no matter how nice it was renovated, being surrounded by all of those derelict properties would be really depressing and downright creepy at night.”

Burnip also noted the council had made a “genius” attempt to make the town more inviting by painting fake doors and windows onto some of the plywood covering the houses, and said it was sometimes hard to tell which doors were real and which were fake.

“Whoever made them fake doors are genius. I absolutely love them. They look so good, and they do make the houses look so much better,” he said.

“It’s a good way to make you think it’s not boarded up, but it is.”

A house on one of the town’s “numbered” streets will set you back as little as £20,000, with the more recently renovated properties fetching a price tag of around £50,000 to £80,000 (Image: NORTHERN ECHO)

During his visit, Burnip got chatting with a few friendly locals, including one who had lived in Horden for decades and worked in the mine for nearly 40 years before it was shut down.

He said: “It’s just gone down the banks since the collieries finished.

“It was better then, because everyone took pride in what they had. Now they don’t bother.”

Recalling what the town was like before the mine shut down, he said: “You had all the working men’s clubs, and all the public houses… practically none left now.”

Horden’s abandoned houses also mean property there is cheap.

A house on one of the town’s “numbered” streets will set you back as little as £20,000, with the more recently renovated properties fetching a price tag of around £50,000 to £80,000.

However, one estate agent featured in the video warned the properties would need to be renovated as local kids had broken into and vandalised many of them.