I should not be here. The roe deer stares at me; in such close proximity I could almost touch him.  He is bewildered and wide‑eyed, slightly camouflaged by dense leaves and shrubs. He also should not be here, so close to the ominous structures. He quickly turns and retreats. But unlike the deer, I press on.

I become mangled with thorn branches and sink with each footstep further into the mud, which feels like quicksand. Loxley Valley is prone to flooding, and the past few days of rain have made some parts almost impassable. Footpaths that I find are long since overgrown. Ivy and nettles wick at my arms and tangles round my bag, like a metaphorical warning. Bright red and pink, scarlet elf cups grow on a mossy log—early signs of spring, despite the bitter winter chill. A great white egret soars down into a pond nearby, executing perfect precision when capturing its target. I wonder whether I should have engaged in some better precision planning myself before this trek.

I reach the base of twelve‑foot‑high metal fences meant to keep people out but broken and completely ineffective I slip through a gap and arrive at the decaying remnants of Hepworth Refractories, the silhouette of a former brick factory. The factory once produced and supplied up to 95 percent of the UK’s hollow refractories (materials used to withstand extremely high temperatures and used to line furnaces and kilns).  The site just beyond Sheffield’s urban footprint and next to the Peak District National Park, closed for good in the 1990’s following the decline of the steel industry and the former brick factory now stands derelict.

A sheet of metal is clashing against the exposed crumbling window frames, and the tiny voices of the nesting pigeons echo in the tall beams. There are droppings and fluffy makeshift beds of feathers and branches in the corners. Ceramic tiles still line some of the corridors.  An intricate painting of a large white rabbit, with the words “follow me” painted underneath, catches my attention. The place is like a post‑apocalyptic Alice in Wonderland. A rusty metal furnace towers up the side of the warehouse, and a broken, swaying ladder leads to the top. “Dare to climb” is scrawled in red letters. Perhaps not.

I have an eerie feeling I am not alone. My mind wanders to ghosts and the unseen boring into my back. I clamber over a myriad of broken bricks, glass, and debris, with buds and shoots snaking through grates and steel. Trees pull down on the barriers designed to segregate this place from the adjoining valley in protest. Dandelions grow next to concrete storage hubs and wires hanging from the imposing steal roof intertwine with fern fronds. It creates a rainforest mirage as light drizzle simmers. There is also a haze like a chemical mist. I breathe in spores of fungi, moss, and a pungent sickly smell.

I move with teetering footsteps, a crash from above stops me in my tracks. My pulse is racing as I catch a momentary flash of a muscular torso, yellow talons, and the frenzied scuffle of dark brown mottled wings. With a surge and a dive, as quickly as it appeared, it leaves it’s nesting place and soars out through the industrial archway.  I cannot process what has happened, but the flurry of disordered activity reminds me that I am indeed not alone, the bird was perturbed by my presence. This site is known to be home to a variety of wildlife and hosts roosts and nests for both bats and barn owls in the buildings and surrounding woodlands.

This dystopian abandoned warehouse—once teeming with labour, machinery and bustling folk—is now a utopia for the natural world which has colonised the site. Nature is battling, literally taking routes with what remains of the timber and steel structures—and winning.  In the absence of human interference, the beauty of the overgrown, untouched, and deserted space here offers a unique perspective far removed from the conventional aesthetic qualities of manicured shrubs, flower gardens, and nature parks. Places that promise connections to nature but often offer anything but, with constant human intervention and pruning to create an ornamental, artificial construct nature can become, unnatural.

The villagers of nearby Loxley have also fought their own battle with a proposal for a housing development on this site. In 2006, hundreds of eloquent and detailed oppositions were submitted by the locals.  The planning application was refused on the grounds that it would substantially harm the countryside, biodiversity, landscape, and effect pollution levels not to mention the concerns around the protected species that have habited here. The villagers won their battle. The refractories still stand and have evaded the bulldozer—for now. The current site owners have however installed CCTV and a huge red speaker system which I notice and make haste.

I certainly shouldn’t be here. This biodiverse, wild, otherworldly setting.  And neither, it seems, should anything else we could artificially manufacture or redesign. The sites ugly and unsightly outward appearance may well be the very thing that has kept it abandoned and therefore free from destruction.