For some reason Telford is an untapped resource, although I'm not sure why. It's easy enough to get to by train, and there's plenty there to see if one knows where to look. I did do some rooftopping in Wellington once, when I was walking along and a water balloon was hurled at me by some kid on a roof. I applauded the hilarity of the situation, but within minutes, I was up there tapping him on the shoulder saying "Excuse me, hand over the water balloons." He did so, and someone called the police, they saw me up there with the water balloons and thought it was me that people had reported, so I had to dash.
And then of course, I have my frequent visits to Ironbridge, including the nursing home, the Fat Frog restaurant and most famously, the power station.
On this occasion I headed out once again to Telford, where I walked to the abandoned house called Monewood. Monewood wasn't much, but I did find this place on the way.
I nicknamed this place the rabbit house, because of what I found inside.
No, not that kind of rabbit. Get your minds out of the gutter!
Allegedly the Rabbit House was built in the 1960s, and was last occupied from 2004 to 2014. In 2016, planning permission was granted to demolish it to make way for loads of new houses, because this one is taking up too much room, apparently. It wasn't a planned adventure but I decided to slip inside, easily evading the builders on the site.
Seriously, I hear so many stories of people being caught while doing this, and I just have to ask, how? I've only been caught a handful of times. Avoiding people is the easiest thing ever.
And it's surprisingly quite refined. I can imagine this place being occupied by quite a well-off family.
Why are they demolishing this place? It's gorgeous!
Even the downstairs bathroom, as far as abandoned bathrooms go, is pretty nice.
This would have been a downstairs bedroom, maybe. There was an odd vibe about this place though. I definitely felt like I was being watched. Hope Everybody Likes Pancakes!
As I entered the lounge I discovered that I was far from the first to check this place out, but even with the graffiti it was still gorgeous.
At the back of the lounge was a rather spacious kitchen.
This table with the dropped sides means that this might well have been a small dining area attached to the kitchen.
Moving on upstairs, this appears to have been used as a teenager hang out. And why not? A structurally sound, uninhabbited but accessible house makes for a perfect teenage hang out, doesn't it?
One bedroom was completely bare except for a few bits of junk on the floor.
This appears to be a badly focused image of a key for a "sanctuary." Its probably left over from an old board game.
There's some leftover jewelry too.
There's a cupboard, which is ominously labeled the "Play room."
Clearly written by the teenage intruders, which gave me ominous thoughts of the events that took place in this cupboard.
A few names are scribbled among some stickers. Are these former child occupants, or former trespassers? When I was a child, I wrote on the walls of my bedroom too.
Here's the aforementioned rabbit. This cuddly bundle of joy was actually tucked away in the cupboard next to it, which I opened while I was exploring. It's possible that it remained undiscovered even by the trespassers who wrote on all the walls.
It's possible, quite sadly, that some kid in the family who originally lived here, is missing their childhood toy that got accidentally left behind.
The bathroom is trashed. There are shards of glass everywhere, and the curtain pole has been pulled off the window.
Someone has kicked the bath in.
And the toilet is in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.
Oddly enough the vast majority of the graffiti was in this room. These teenagers had access to the entire house, and all they did was write "Beware" in the lounge, and then focus all of their time and energy on one room. It seems like a waste of a perfectly good abandoned house, not that I'm condoning vandalism or anything, but it struck me as odd.
For me, the graffiti really added to this places character. Obviously the family who grew up here, particularly the children who might be more sentimental, probably wouldn't want to see their former home messed up like this, but I actually enjoyed some of this graffiti, in particular the face on the wall with a gunshot wound in his forehead.
Poor Faith...
Onto the outbuildings!
The outbuildings seemed older than the main building. Its clear to me that this little shed would have been a privy to a previous building on this site, although the toilet has long since been removed.
The green house was completely overgrown.
And then of course we have this shed. This shed intrigues me because, as with the upstairs bedroom in the house, it's a focal point for the graffiti.
It's also being used for storage.
Does that say "Ass like Rhianna?"
Oh look, someone is watching me. And I'll say what I said in Chaos Manor- that sort of stuff isn't scary anymore! We're being watched every day, the minute we step outside, by hundreds of cameras. I don't care about you watching me too. You don't scare me, Pencil Kid.
I almost missed this, but "Hello" is written on the ceiling.
I sure hope that this star wasn't meant to be a pentagram, or someone sucks at intimidating graffiti.
And finally we have the garage, segemented into two halves, and filled with mattresses, graffiti and other junk.
But with the graffiti, and this goes for the other building too, why focus it on these smaller buildings when there's an abandoned house right there?
It seems that whoever lived here was a darts fan.
And this appears to be written here prior to the place becoming abandoned.
But that was all from Rabbit House, which was my preferred abandoned house on this particular adventure. We discovered it by accident, and it was easy on the eyes, and filled with little clues about its past.
The next house, the one we actually had planned to check out, Monewood Cottage, was very photogenic, especially on the bleak day.
Isn't it beautiful?
Monewood has been on maps of the area since the 1600s but the first map to feature the cottage next to it was produced in 1902. And it truly is a shell.
Oddly enough, this looked like a garage, suggesting the house had some sort of automobile access, although where to is anyones guess. You saw the exterior shot, right? It's hard to imagine getting a car to it.
The bath has come crashing through the ceiling, although I've heard previous visitors say that the bath was upstairs, so this is a relatively new development.
This appears to be an old beer crate. It says "Beer at Home" faintly on it.
As you can see, there isn't much else left. The ceiling has gone. Most of the roof has also gone. This is actually good for safety reasons. A roof cant collapse on me if I'm walking on it.
There's an old fridge in a back room.
Judging by these wires, it did have electricity. I wish I knew more about it. When was this abandoned, and why?
Here are the stairs. It doesn't look like they're possible to climb, even if there was anywhere to go.
Okay, so contrary to what I said, here I am upstairs. I'm standing on literally the only stable and accessible piece of the upstairs floor. As you can see, there's a tree growing on the rest of it.
The rest of the floor has gone.
And that's it for todays blog. Really, my trek out to Monewood was merely ticking one off the list. But it was not to be my last trip to Telford. The Rabbit House was perhaps the real treat, because we found it accidentally, and because while Monewood House was pretty, it didn't inspire a blog post on its own.
Next blog post will be back in Shrewsbury. As always, share this blog on any social media platform you want, and if you want to see more and get regular updates, follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and if you can spare the change, donate to the blogs growth using the donate button in the corner. The money literally just goes on more adventures, increasing the life of this blog. But far more important is that you all go out there and make someone smile. There's a lot of misery in the world, and we each have the power to turn someones day around. The moment you see another human being, you have power over how good their day is. Even a friendly smile as they pass you on the street could lift someones spirits if they're feeling glum.
Equally as important to making people smile is doing what you love. Miserable people will poop on you for doing what you love, but when you reach your final moments on this planet you will look back and regret it if you let these weirdos get to you. Miserable weirdos who, if they could stop looking down their noses for five minutes, might be able to learn from the happy people how to be happy.
We all deserve to be happy if its not at someones expense.
Thanks for reading! Stay awesome!
