Former Latvian Embassy / Pemberton House Farm in Lancashire - Oct '21

HISTORY: What there is of it. Pemberton farm was the former home of Howard J Pym Honorary Consul For Latvia and his family. They lived there until 2007. A company called Timber Latvia Ltd was registered at that address:

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07117531
But dissolved in 2011. Apparently it went up for sale at £1million but took so long that vandals ended up wrecking the house and the value. Can't find information on who bought it eventually, but in 2018 planning permission was given for building houses on there:

https://democracy.chorley.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?AIId=62002
It's just across the road from the famous Camelot Theme Park that was abandoned for so long. It also has planning permission for housing and the locals have started a campaign to block it saying the local roads would not be able to cope with the amount of new traffic. But it's probably more to do with the area becoming one where even more development would end up taking place. My daughter went to school in the village so that's just the impression I got from speaking to people.

EXPLORE: Not a patch on it's former glory, but still a very interesting building. The cold war-esque front gates, the apocalyptic concrete indoor garage space, the dark purple padded room in the basement and even a jacuzzi near the front door. It's an odd one. Sadly the jacuzzi had a huge chunk of roof over it so couldn't get a photo.














There's only one sizeable outbuilding. Looks like it's for horses. But had alot of empty cartridges on the floor. I'm going to guess a clay pigeon range was on site:





Some curious graffiti which is rare. I was impressed that someone made sure to add an apostrophe to "we're"! Often missed out by the vandalising youth during their philosophical expressions.

You would never guess any of that from the outside

The "Timber Latvia Ltd" name reminds me that my brother-in-law worked a long time
for the kitchen furniture firm Magnet - and he travelled often to Finland, from where Magnet obtained at least some of the timber for its products. I take it that Howard Pym also imported wood from the same general part of the world for use in the UK,

Roderick said:

You would never guess any of that from the outside

Click to expand...

Aye. The gates are a clue something is different. But outside as you approach looks like a regular house. Then you get inside and it was definitely built unique originally. These sections do not look like later add-ons.

That is some unusual architecture, shame its so wrecked as always seems to be the way!