People Keep Leaving Things Here (10 Photos)

Places that grew one small offering at a time

These collections grew through small contributions: a sign, a lock or a piece of gum left behind. Strangers kept adding more, turning ordinary places into shared landmarks.

More: Strange Finds (8 Photos)

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🔒 Love Locks — Hohenzollern Bridge, Cologne, Germany 🇩🇪

Couples have been clipping padlocks to the fence of this railway bridge over the Rhine since about 2008. In 2015 the Hohenzollern Bridge carried an estimated 500,000 locks, give or take 200,000. Many carry initials or names.

💡 Rail Fact: Deutsche Bahn looked at removing them in 2018 and dropped the idea; it says it has no plans to take them off.

📷 Photo and cover crop: BriYYZ from Toronto, Canada / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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🧣 Clootie Well — Munlochy, Scotland 🇬🇧

Strips of cloth hang from almost every tree around the Clootie Well on the Black Isle. Visitors traditionally left a rag, or cloot, as an offering to the healing spirits of the spring.

💡 Rag Fact: Pure cotton and wool are biodegradable materials suited to this tradition. In 2019 rangers planned a cleanup after visitors left clothing, shoes, electrical equipment and even a venetian blind.

📷 Photo: Julian Paren / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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✍️ Abbey Road Studios Wall — London, England 🇬🇧

Music fans from around the world write messages on the wall outside Abbey Road Studios in St John’s Wood. The studio repaints it every month or so, so every note here is temporary.

💡 Crossing Fact: The zebra crossing out front, the one from the Beatles album cover, was given Grade II listed status in 2010.

📷 Photo: DearCatastropheWaitress at English Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)

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🪧 Sign Post Forest — Watson Lake, Yukon, Canada 🇨🇦

Town signs, license plates and homemade boards from all over the world crowd the posts at the Sign Post Forest on the Alaska Highway. Travel Yukon puts the count at almost 100,000, and visitors are still invited to add one.

💡 History Fact: The first sign was put up in 1942 by Private Carl K. Lindley, a US Army soldier injured while building the highway. His read “Danville, Illinois, 2,835 miles.”

📷 Photo and cover crop: gillfoto / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🍬 Gum Wall — Seattle, Washington, USA 🇺🇸

The brick walls along this stretch of Post Alley, under Pike Place Market, are covered in chewed gum. It started with people waiting in line for shows at the nearby Market Theater, the AP reported. Visitors still press on fresh pieces of their own.

💡 Cleanup Fact: Before crews steam-cleaned the wall in 2015, the AP estimated the load at about 2,200 pounds of gum. As this 2025 photo shows, it filled up again.

📷 Photo: Julian Lupyan / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

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👙 Cardrona Bra Fence — Cardrona Valley, New Zealand 🇳🇿

It began with four bras on a farm fence along the Cardrona Valley Road around New Year 1999. Someone kept taking them down, more kept going up, and by early 2006 the fence held about 800, Breast Cancer Foundation NZ says. Nobody knows who hung the first ones.

💡 Charity Fact: A pink sign and collection box now stand by the fence, and its breast cancer fundraiser has passed NZ$200,000.

📷 Photo: Orangesclub / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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👟 Shoe Tree — Middlegate, Nevada, USA 🇺🇸

Drivers on U.S. Route 50 near Middlegate tie their shoes together and toss them into the branches. The original Shoe Tree, a towering cottonwood full of sneakers, baby shoes and boots, was cut down around New Year 2011. Locals simply picked a new tree nearby.

💡 Legend Fact: One local story says a newlywed threw his bride’s shoes into the tree after an argument. Travel Nevada notes that several versions exist.

📷 Photo: Famartin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🪙 Coin Tree — Dovedale, Peak District, England 🇬🇧

Walkers in Dovedale hammer coins edge-first into fallen logs and stumps until the bark looks like scales. Coin trees like this one turn up beside paths all over Britain, each coin a small wish.

💡 Wish Fact: Historian Ceri Houlbrook found 237 coin trees at 32 sites, most of the sites started since the 1990s. The oldest known one is an uprooted oak on Isle Maree in the Scottish Highlands.

📷 Photo: Doyle of London / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🍼 Pacifier Tree — Copenhagen, Denmark 🇩🇰

When Danish children are ready to give up their pacifiers, they often hang them on a pacifier tree, tied up with ribbons and notes. This one stands in Østre Anlæg in Copenhagen. One note on another Copenhagen tree read “Dear Pacifiers, I love you but now I’m a big boy.”

💡 Garden Fact: At the pacifier tree in Frederiksberg Gardens, the gardeners strip a year’s worth of pacifiers every November when the trees are prepared for winter.

📷 Photo: Daderot / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

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✌️ Lennon Wall — Prague, Czech Republic 🇨🇿

Names, peace signs and song lyrics cover the Lennon Wall in layer after layer. People started writing here after John Lennon’s face was first painted on it in 1980, and the messages have never really stopped.

💡 Wall Fact: The wall belongs to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Since it reopened in November 2019, writing is only allowed in designated white zones.

📷 Photo: Jirka Dl / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)