Aqueduct

 

Ages ago, way back when I first did Calcott Hall and the Knights Templar Cave armed only with a terrible samsung to take pictures, we also swung by this aqueduct. And for some reason I didn't take any pictures. I mean, I appreciated it for its historic significance, and I thought it was cool, but at the time I was young and riding a wave of exhilaration from having snuck into some abandoned houses for the first time after years of scaling every building in Shrewsbury, so this didn't excite me quite as much. I was still a baby in urbex terms, and I was prioritising the adrenaline rush over the history. 

But a decade or so of urbex has made me humble, and it's time to give this thing the attention it deserves. 

The aqueduct is sixteen feet high and 187 feet long, and was built for the Shropshire Union Canals "Shrewsbury branch" which was established way back in 1793 when canals were all the rage.

It was originally built out of stone by a chap called Josiah Clowes, but he passed away in 1795 and a freak flood washed his aqueduct away shortly after. And that is rather hilariously tragic. It's almost like the universe just wanted to smite him. It's cancel culture of biblical proportions.

 

But the canal trade still needed an aqueduct, so along came Thomas Telford, the engineer extraordinaire. I spoke about him in my blog about St Chads, where he strongly advised doing work on the church, and was promptly ignored, resulting in its collapse. And in case it wasn't obvious, the town "Telford" is named after him too, which I guess gives him more in common with Howard Taylor Ricketts and Daniel Alcides Carrion. 

However, despite hogging the credit for the aqueduct, just how much input he had on it is questionable. Most will agree that there was some committee involved, or that Thomas Telford was merely carrying out someone else's idea. 

But this was still a proving ground for Thomas Telford's ambitions, because this demonstrated the efficiency of cast iron aqueducts, requiring less material and taking less time. After this, Thomas Telford went on to create the much larger and more famous Pontcysllte aqueduct in 1805, which can still be traversed to this day. And this thing, rotting away in a field, was the prototype.

Naturally, there's no end of photos showing this thing over the decades. It's been enjoyed for numerous generations.

 (Image not mine, obviously)

 

 So this photo was apparently taken on September 18 1974, at which point the canal was long dried up and the aqueduct long abandoned. There's a woman and her son enjoying the view. And I kinda love that people have been appreciating this place for so long, despite it being long redundant. 

At either end of the aqueduct are these brick arches that are allegedly retained from the original Josiah Clowes aqueduct. Thomas Telford incorporated them into his designs, giving the whole thing a bit of a hybrid appearance. 

Now they're just areas where livestock can go to piss and shit, but much to my amazement there is one image of this aqueduct that shows the river flowing through these archways.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Check it out! I haven't got a date for this image, but it has to be pretty damn old, because all others show the river where it is today. Somehow, over the course of two hundred years, the river has altered its course somewhat.

Here's another old picture that shows the river in its more familiar location.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

The entire river has moved. Isn't that intriguing?

 

Getting up onto the aqueduct is a doddle. The canal is long gone and the ground just slopes up to it. 

 

 

While it's often said to be the first ever cast iron aqueduct, even by Thomas Telford himself in his own notes, he was beaten to the punch by mere weeks by Benjamin Outram, who built one for the Derby Canal. But that ones not around anymore, meaning that this is only the oldest surviving cast iron aqueduct, and that is still pretty cool.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

Frustratingly, while there was loads of photos of people mooching about on the aqueduct, very few of them seem to show it with water. But what this one image does show us is the end of the aqueduct still somewhat elevated above the ground and surrounded by trees, unlike the gentle grassy incline that we have today.

 

 But much to my delight, I did find one photo that shows the aqueduct with water.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

And here it is. It's a bunch of guys on a boat coming down the aqueduct while a bunch of other people stand at the side on the tow path. And it all looks rather precarious, with the footpath being set on the same level as the waterbed. On most canal tow paths, the water surface is usually level with our feet, but not here. The water level is belly-height on these pedestrians.

 

This was often remarked on as a rather odd design. Horses towing the barges could turn their heads and slurp up some canal water if they were thirsty. So can humans, but it's not recommended. 

 

Here we are at the back of the aqueduct...

The Backqueduct. 

 

So the canal was actually considered for closure as long ago as 1899 due to its declining trade, and apparently the aqueduct was in need of maintenance even then. But the canal managed to chug along for a few more decades, until 1944 when a decline in trade led to it being abandoned. 

 

From what I understand, the aqueduct was dried out in the 1950s, and the embankment was leveled sometime after that. There's actually very little evidence that the canal was ever even there.

In 1968 there were plans to remove the aqueduct and take it to Blists Hill to be part of the Ironbridge Gorge museum, and honestly I would have loved that. That's a much nicer fate for it than outright demolition. But for some reason this didn't happen, and now the aqueduct just sits here as a monument to a former thriving industry.

The gate here would indicate that the farmer is using the aqueduct now, but even this is looking a little worse for wear. I don't think anyone has been through here in a while.

That's all I've got. So the aqueduct is publicly accessible, making it slightly anomalous on this blog. But it still ticks my boxes. It's old, it's disused, and it's historically significant. I think it's rather photogenic too, and I've taken far too many shots than I really needed, but hey-ho. 

My next blog will be short and sweet, but also pretty exciting, and as always if you prefer more traditional urbex then my travel blog has some pretty cool adventures from all over Europe.

In the meantime, to stay updated on my blogs, then give my social medias a follow. I know, they're all shit and algorithmic, but it's the best way unfortunately. I'm on the big ones, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as the spawn of the Zuckerberg/Musk dick measuring contest, Threads. And I'm on the ones that people have made to try make the social media landscape less shit, Vero and BlueSky. Give me a follow wherever you happen to be.

Thanks for reading!

The Edgmond Pillbox

 

This will be a quick one. There's a lot of smaller stuff dotted around that hasn't escaped my notice, but has escaped my immediate attention while I typically favour larger adventures. But I have been making a point of trying to get around to these smaller places, and that has brought me to this delightful pillbox, situated somewhere north of Telford. 

For those of you who don't know, pillboxes are defence structures built in 1940 and 1941 as a precaution for possible enemy invasion. The idea was that people could fire at the enemy through the holes in the walls, from relative safety.

Most of them are at strategic points or outside military bases, which makes this one seemingly an anomaly in that it's plonked in the middle of nowhere, between a field and a country road.

 

But it's actually guarding a bridge. Bridges were points of interest because in the event of a land invasion, rivers and canals would make natural barriers and fallback points. So bridges were protected. Granted this ones easily overlooked because today the "natural barrier" in question looks more like a trip hazard than an obstacle.

 But if we look at old maps, we can see that this was once Edgmond Wharf, and part of the Shropshire Union Canal. It's now a shadow of itself, but in 1940 those pesky Nazis would definitely be taking the bridge, and probably getting gunned down from this pillbox.

 

But it's all hypothetical. As the war chugged on, it became less and less likely that the Nazis would invade the UK (If they had, we probably would have let them keep Telford, let's be honest) and consequently pillboxes were never actually used, except maybe by kids looking for a place to piss, shag or smoke. But this one being so rural, it hasn't even had that! There's a bit of graffiti but that's it.

 

 

I do have a soft spot for pillboxes, but I have to be honest, they aren't visually exciting. There's a door, and then it's just a quick stroll around a hexagonal box looking out through various windows. I can totally understand why these aren't everyone's cup of tea. 

 

 

 

But for me, these represent a visual reminder that there was a time when our safe little island of miserable tea drinkers actually had to contend with the possibility that we might be invaded by a foreign nation. In the UK, we really only hear about it happening to other people. We've never lived it.

Unless you're Celtic and about a thousand years old, but that's another story. 

From a patriotic standpoint, we can look at this as a symbol of just how prepared we were. We overcompensated big time, and the UK is covered in remnants of that effort. Better to have a pillbox and not need it, than be shot by a Nazi while out walking the dog along the canal.

But there's something about this that gets my imagination racing. It's a hypothetical scenario. It leads us to wonder just what would have happened if we had been invaded, and it's quite a scary thought when we can imagine these familiar, peaceful places being literal battlegrounds.

And that's why I love them.

 

 So that's all I've got. I said it was a quick one! There's minimal vandalism and graffiti in this pillbox so if you are a war nerd, it might well be worth a quick mooch. If you want something more exciting, then I've recently done some cool things on my travel blog.

I've also recently been interviewed by BBC Radio Shropshire, so by all means give that a listen too.

I would like to promise more exciting blogs on the horizon, but I feel that such a statement is unfair on the little pillbox, because I do like it, and sometimes it's nice to write something short and sweet. What I can promise you is more Telford in the future. The Nazis didn't invade, but I did. 

In the meantime, feel free to follow my social media accounts to stay updated on the blog. I'm on the main shit ones- Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, its deformed twin Threads, and the various attempts to make social media better, Vero and Blue Sky.

Thanks for reading!

Abandoned farm House

 

Today's adventure is a happy accident. The derelict house is almost completely masked from the street. Completely by chance, I happened to stand at just the right angle and caught a glimmer of brickage through a wall of leaves. It's been a long time since anyone gave this place any love, but it's still somehow wholesome.

 

 

The windows are boarded, but the door is unlocked, decorated with a plea for help and a warning not to enter, no doubt scrawled by the same bored teenager/middle-aged manlet. It's perhaps a few years away from being completely obstructed by brambles, but I shall not be getting stabbed my plants today.

 

 

Slipping inside brings us to this staircase with some Victorian-era floor tiles peeking out through the dirt. It all feels rather dated, reminding me of the house I grew up in more so than the characterless box I now inhabit.

I wasn't at all surprised to find that it was actually once on a wealthy estate. It still is, technically, but the big cheese of said estate doesn't live there and doesn't seem to care. In fact renovation of this house was curiously stopped some time ago when the owner decided that the land around it would be great to build newer houses on. So it seems that the plan is to let this one fall into ruin to make way for that.

The last occupants were a man called Reg, his wife, and their plethora of feline companions, and by all accounts they were rather lovely people. Such accounts are entirely from the 1970s but that doesn't mean they weren't here for longer. But I do know that they were the last occupants, and the house has been empty ever since.

 

 

The rooms are as I expected. Spacious, empty and almost indistinguishable in regards to what purpose they served, although presumably fulfilling the roles of lounge and dining room. This one definitely has dining room vibes. 

 

 Whereas this has a bit of a cosy vibe that makes me think it might have been a lounge.

 

The yellow room, with its sole extant work surface cupboard combo is almost definitely the kitchen.

 

 

And I'm really loving the wallpaper. It gives it some character. It's a hint of homeliness shining through all the trashitude.

 

 

There's still a hook attached to the ceiling beam, which probably once had a pan or something hanging from it, such was the norm back in the day.

 

 

There's also a set of stairs behind the kitchen wall.

But it's the pantry that I found particularly interesting.

 

 

Purely because there's actually stuff left behind here. 

 

 

These are the final remnants of Reggie and his wife's life here, left to gather dust. I guess when the whole place was cleared out, someone forgot to finish the pantry. But then why are books even in the pantry? That seems rather odd. 

But these books are very telling. "Husband in Training" by Christine Rimmer is a romance novel that was published in 1999. "No Way To Begin" is another romance novel first published in 1991.

 

 

"Finders Keepers," by Candice Adams, was published in 1985.

So it's given us a rough idea of how long Reg and his wife lived here. Even though most recollections of them that I could find were dated around the 1970s, they clearly survived to at least 1999. It's possible that they're still alive and have just moved out.

 

It's time to slip upstairs.
 

 

Through some additional digging, I found that in the 1940s this place was lived in by a man named Frank, who was the Butler of the estate. But soon he would be joined by the grand poobah of the estate too, a chap named Jock. 

 

Jock was born in 1883, and ticks all the rich folk boxes. His parents were cousins, he attended Eton school, which is basically Hogwarts for wankers, and at the outbreak of the first world war he avoided being sent to the frontlines by being ill.

But poor Jock was a bit of a misfit. His mother died when he was two, and his father was a bit tight on the purse strings, making him "the poor one" at Eton. 

Consequently when he did finally get financial autonomy he went a bit nuts. It was said that he'd rather make £10 crookedly than £100 straight. Ultimately he faced scandal when he nicked some paintings and his first wife's pearls in order to fraudulently claim insurance. Oh dear. 

 

Jock. (Photo not mine, obviously)

So already marked with controversy, and with another world war looming, Jock took his second wife to Kenya, where they joined the Happy Valley Set, a group of British aristocrats who had set up their own private paradise, notorious for their hedonism, dabbling in drink, drugs, sexual promiscuity and whatnot.

Jock was said to be slightly out of place in such a world of rampant alcohol and adultery. Despite the fact that his second wife was already unfaithful and not making a secret that she was with him for his money, even referring to him as a dirty old man, he seemed to actually be hurt by the attention she was getting. 

They'd only been married for three months when she had an affair with a man who considered himself the top dog of the Happy Valley Set, a philanderer and serial womaniser, specifically targeting married women. 

 

The affair was very public and Jock, hurt and humiliated, ended up giving it his blessing before resolving to return to the UK alone. Shortly after, the other man was discovered shot dead in his car. Jock was the chief suspect, but it's also been said that there's an over-abundance people who would also have reasons for wanting the man dead. Many referred to him as a first-rate shit. The story made waves in the media, with the whole subject of rich people killing each other over their own depravity bringing some much-needed juice to the British public in wartime. But Jock was ultimately found not guilty.

Despite this, Jock lost everything. He was shunned by the Happy Valley Set. His wife left him for another rich man, who Jock described as the most boring man in the world. He turned to drink and was then flung from his horse, resulting in him being encased in plaster with a spinal injury. He returned to England, alone. But his grand house, the seat of his estate, had been commandeered and repurposed for the war effort. 

With nowhere to go, he came here and lived with his butler.

 

So it kinda makes me see this place from a whole new perspective. It's a large house by my own peasant standards, but for Jock this must have been hell to adjust to. He was used to refinery and grandeur. Now he was sofa surfing with the working class. It's an interesting dynamic, and I wish I knew more about this period of his life.

 

Upon arriving back in the UK, Jock was questioned by police due to the theft of his first wife's pearls, which only really served to give him more grief on top of what he was already going through. For a rich bloke who was used to getting what he wanted, life in this spacious four-bedroomed manor house was a bit of a kick to the teeth, and he told nobody that he had returned, apart from his butler Frank, who had to deal with his depressed alcoholic employer moping around the place. It's not like he could really comment or even object to the sudden intrusion either, because Jock owned the house, the land it was on, and paid Franks wages too. 

In 1942 Jock went to his solicitor and put together a very flimsy will. To his daughter he offered "any trinket she desired," and to his son he gave a gold cigarette case, a gold watch and a shotgun, stating that he was to have nothing else because he was already amply provided for. As for Frank, the loyal butler who had put him up, he gave £100 (equivalent of nearly £4000 today) and some bedroom furniture, a subtle hint that maybe he wasn't impressed with his decor.

Jock then went to a hotel in Liverpool. He had previously come here with his second wife back when he was still married to his first wife. Perhaps this is something he regarded as his biggest mistake. He gave the hotel staff orders to not disturb him because he'd be looking after himself, and then he overdosed on barbiturates and died.

The story of Jock is a sad one, but it was all of his lifestyle choices that led him to that point. His story is one of self destruction, and in the end he knew it. 

Now onto the best part of any abandoned house, the bathroom.

 

,,

 Still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.

,

 It's weird to think that rich boy Jock, head of the entire estate, has shat here.

 

 

While it didn't happen here, the nearby land was also the scene of a gruesome murder in 1835 that I want to briefly digress into. The victim in question was a girl called Mary, the domestic of the estates land steward, described as a remarkably fine girl with pleasing manners whose conduct had been exemplary. While the local papers at the time said she was seventeen, her gravestone says she was fifteen. I guess it's all rather immaterial now. She was a child either way. I know all the Royal buttlickers say that this age is perfectly fine when the person doing the letching is Prince Andrew (and not a brown person), but young is young. 

 

Mary had, at midnight, come knocking on her mistresses door requesting to be allowed to return to her parents home, because she had received word that her mother was ill and dying. Her mistress allowed her to go, but didn't inquire about where the message had come from. She heard Mary go down the stairs and out through the door. In the morning, they found the door locked and the key missing, presumably taken by Mary. There was also a ladder lying on the ground outside of her window, presumably the means by which the messenger had relayed the news to Mary.

Mary's mother, however, was perfectly well, and Mary was found dead in a field, having been duped out of the house. Her clothes were a mess, and the grass around was disturbed as if a struggle had taken place. She had bruising and scratching around her throat and thighs. The verdict was that someone had tried to rape her but not succeeded, and she had been choked to death.

An hour later, a labourer in his fifties named Thomas, sharing the same employer, was found hanging in one of the farm buildings. He was described as quiet, honest and hard working, of a rather reserved disposition, but in his pocket was the key that Mary had taken, so he was quickly concluded to be the culprit. His wife recalled how she had called him to bed late multiple times late into the night and he had kept on saying "I'm coming" but when the wife woke at 2am she found that he had left the house.

The story is recapped on Marys grave, which says "he escaped the punishment of the law by adding his own death to that of his innocent victim."

 

Interestingly in 1998 the great-great-great granddaughter of Thomas learned of his actions while researching her family tree, and was outraged to the point that she is now hellbent on proving his innocence. Which baffles me, if I'm honest. I've researched my own family tree too. My forget-how-many-great grand uncle was shipped off to Australia back when that was a thing, and I'm not outraged, because that isn't me or anyone close to me, so why take it personally? Any outrage seems to be far more ego-fueled than anything. It's as if she's personally insulted by the idea that she's descended from someone nefarious. But I hate to piddle on everyone's picnic, but we probably all are, somewhere down the line. Humans are great at being shit. 

Thomas's descendant has one small fact to bring to the table, that Mary was friends with Thomas's daughter who happened to be a victim of rape. She believes that Thomas caught the same rapist going after Mary, lost his shit, and the two had a fight. The rapist ultimately killed both, but made Thomas's death look like suicide to set him up for Mary's murder. The source of this information? Psychics and mediums, of course! People who are literally paid to tell you what you want to hear. 

Honestly this is really petty. If you're descended from a criminal, it's not a personal attack on you. Just live with it.

Ultimately the murder of Mary and the suicide of Thomas has very little to do with this house, but it happened in the vicinity and it's a good story, so I've included it anyway. 

Onto the out-buildings...

 

 

There's a room around the back which contains a couple of freezers, although why they're here when the kitchen is perfectly spacious is anyone's guess. 

 

 And of course there's barns galore.

 

 

And it wouldn't be true urbex without a badly drawn cock somewhere.

 

There's a sign on the wall about cow milking, but apart from that it's fairly ruinous. 

 

 

This part of the barn is just full of brambles and nettles and other pointy things designed by nature to hurt my feelings and ankles. But I don't need to go in there. I can see it all from the window, and it's nothing I haven't seen before. 

 

Aaaand that's all I've got. 

I actually really like this place. I know houses aren't the most stellar adventures of the urbex world. I say that as someone who once swam out to a capsized cruise ship, so it goes without saying that I like things to be a tad more exciting. But things like this make for a fun mooch. There's loads of places that are commonly trekked by the casual urbexer that I'll see during the most rudimentary Instagram doomscroll, and I'll know exactly what I'll see when I go there. This was a roadside find, completely accidental and off the common urbex radar, which I actually enjoy more. This means I have no idea what I'm getting into. It's very much like that military base where I stumbled across an entire horse skeleton, completely unexpected. And people were begging me to tell them where it was, and I just didn't see why. They weren't going to get the same "Holy shit" feeling that I did, because they'd know it was there. What's the appeal? I love not knowing what I'll find. I love an authentic adventure even if, in today's case, it is just a house. The next unexpected roadside find might be something awesome.

Sadly for the urbex world, all of the suicide and murders that loosely tie into the history of this place actually take place away from the house, so it's dodged the clickbait and cringey "paranormal investigation" labels thrust upon them by the trash-tier urbexer. Unless they lie, which is not unlikely. 

But hey-fucking-ho. 

Coming up next, I'm turning my attention to my travel blog with my invasion of Europe and a story that I can't wait to dig my teeth into. But until then, if you like my blogs and want to keep up with them, then my social medias are by far the best way. Although referring to social media and "best" in the same sentence feels like a contradiction in terms. But we live in an era now where people are tired of the shittery that comes with the usual webshites and their algorithmic hellscapes cancelling our reach and trying to sell it back to us, and consequently, we now have options. Vero provides something reminiscent of an old Instagram experience, albeit slightly buggy, so I can be followed there, whereas Blue Sky perfectly encapsulates a pre-Elon (prelon?) Twitter, so that's interesting. Some genius has even remade Myspace as Spacehey, so I'm there and still trying to figure out how I can bend it to my flavour of shameless self-promotion in a world that lacks the modern newsfeed of today. And of course, I'm on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads and Reddit. But I don't know why. As soon as these alternatives get big enough, let's jump ship. There is hope for the future.

Thanks for reading!