The House Next Door

(DISCLAIMER: As an overall nice human being, I do not force entry, vandalize, steal, or disclose means of entry or location if it isn't obvious. I do this to protect locations and respect them. Trespass without forced entry is a civil offense rather than a criminal one, which isn't worth acting on unless one causes damage, steals, has ill intent, etc. I simply photograph and leave everything as I find it. I do not condone breaking and entering, and I do not condone what I do. I'm a danger to myself and a terrible role model )

Hello everyone.
As you probably know, I alternate my blog posts between "Shrewsbury" and "Not-so-Shrewsbury," so that I can keep the blog title somewhat accurate and still enjoy the freedom to branch out. However today I've once again given the Shrewsbury slot to Telford, because I like Telford. Shrewsbury folk do have a reputation for disliking it, but nevertheless my terrifying good friend, Ouija LeMay, told me that the best way to sway the masses is through mind control, and who am I to disagree with Ouija LeMay? Last time she was in a bad mood, Shrewsbury froze. You don't fuck with Ouija LeMay.

So todays blog will be riddled with subliminal messages brainwashing you into liking Telford.

So recently I met up with Neil, who is a friend of mine from Telford who does quite a bit of rooftopping and has actually had a few adventures with me now. He joined me for the Haygate blog a few months back. He referred to todays location as "The House Next Door," because as the name suggests, it's next door to him!
As you know, I only explore places if means of access is non-forceful. In this case it was wide open but deserted, and somehow not vandalised.
As such, to protect it, I won't post any external shots of this place. Let me just kindly assure you, it's a really gorgeous house. Now, houses that are empty usually have a mysterious quality to them, and a sad story. The fact that we were able to just walk in would suggest that this place is neglected or overlooked.

The house shows up on maps from the 1890s, and remains consistent throughout maps of the various eras, with nothing notable about it, likely always just a Victorian dwelling. It appears to still be a dwelling in the early 21st Century but was overgrown and appeared derelict by 2015.
There's a mower in the hallway, which is mighty funny because the garden is a jungle. It's an ironic find, thats for sure.

I love the tiled flooring here.

These rooms are pretty large and spacious, with fireplaces and long curtains, and windows that have shutters on them, which is pretty cool. Back in its glory days this would have been quite a fancy house.

I'm fairly certain that this was once a dining room, given that there's a hatch leading through to the kitchen. The wall in the corner there is showing signs of decay.

So here's the kitchen, which is pretty bleak, but if one looks closely at the floor, they'll see where all the flooring has been ripped up to reveal the old Victorian floor tiles.

And look, the brickwork wallpaper is also torn.

The only furniture still in the building were in this one room, with armchairs placed in every corner, almost as if they were put on display. With the fireplace, the flooring and the wallpaper, I found this incredibly photogenic.

In spite of the house being wide open for trespassers there's absolutely no vandalism here. It's gone relatively unnoticed, although it would be arrogant to assume other urban explorers haven't been here.

The cellar has this little shelf with loads of vintage bottles on it. It very much reminded me of the stairway to the cellar of Calcott Hall.

The cellar was incredibly cool, in both design and in temperature. Given that we've had a heatwave, it was quite refreshing to go down here. I didn't really want to leave.

However, the upstairs awaits!

There are four bedrooms, each pretty samey, some with floral wallpaper, and some just plain.  But they all had fireplaces, although some were put out of use.

The toilet's pretty clean, and of course there's still toilet paper. I actually went exploring with a couple recently to a few abandoned houses that I have yet to blog about, and they have their own toilet-related running joke for urban exploring- there's always toilet paper left behind.

The floorboards have been removed in the bathroom, indicative that work has been done, or will be done.

Likewise, the shower has been dismantled.

The final bedroom had this cute little thing hanging in it, and then, curiously, a stairway to the attic.

The stairway led to the hatch into the attic, but because there's still very much a ceiling in there, it got remarkably cramped and made opening the attic hatch very fiddly. It just seemed completely bizarre because ordinarily attic hatches are built into the ceiling, without a stairway like this leading to them. Or if there are stairs to the attic, they lead up like any other stairs would, without ending in a cramped ceiling and trap door. Also to have this in a bedroom and not in the hallway is also an architectual eccentricity. However, if this was my house, I would use the stairs as a bookshelf behind a cupboard door.

Upon pushing the hatch open I instantly regretted it- in contrast to the cellar, it was like sticking my head into an oven. It was a generic attic space, and I didn't bother staying up there long enough to take pictures, what with the heatwave.


I did take a small video of this place on my phone though which I'll include here!

So that's it for this house. The future is uncertain, but then so is the past. Heck, so is the present. It's a gorgeous but empty house, completely accessible but somehow unvandalised. This is why I will not be showing any external shots- it's important to me that this place stays safe.

I hope this place has a future.

Anyway, next blog is out of Shropshire, but the one after that is another Shrewsbury rooftop blog. In the meantime, share this blog, Like my Facebook, Follow my Instagram, Subscribe to my terrible Youtube channel, and follow my Twitter.

Thanks for reading x