The house with the air raid shelter

(Disclaimer: Joking aside, I fully understand the risks/dangers involved in these adventures and do so in the full knowledge of what could happen. I don't encourage or condone and I accept no responsibility for anyone else following in my footsteps. I never break in a place, I never take any items and I never cause any damage. I will not disclose a location, or means of entry. I leave the building as I find it and only enter to take photographs for my own pleasure and to document the building.)

привет, всём.
For ten days, we were forced to live like Early Man, barely scraping by, like our prehistoric ancestors. But after ten days we finally have internet access once again! Let the blog commence! 
A few of you might remember a series of posts from last year called Operation Cobra. A bunch of us took off for the legendary, yet enigmatic "Cloud House" in Wales, and upon realising that the route to Cloud House was dotted with a bunch of derelict houses, a creepy derelict chapel, an eerie abandoned caravan park, and a little chef, all along the same stretch of road, we decided to make a road trip blog series about it.

Today I'm looking back at Operation Cobra, because of that entire series, there's one abandoned house in Shropshire that I decided to leave out.

I left this house out of the original series because the pathway of Operation Cobra was fairly straightforward and revealing. If you locate two of the locations, you can pretty much work out the rest, and to include this house would have put it in danger.

I didn't want that. Abandoned houses were once homes, and are usually abandoned due to the occupier dying and having no family left to pick up the pieces. In that regard it's really quite sad, and to see these places exposed to the elements is sadder still. An abandoned house is basically a museum of a former life, or a really detailed gravestone. They deserve to be respected. They are pretty creepy, but oddly alluring. Nevertheless, I document these places and leave them as I find them, and I only go in if they're wide open for anyone to enter.

Earlier this year, the house became widely known to urban explorers online, which sadly means it probably doesn't look as awesome as it did when I went there, but it also means I can break silence and display this beautiful house on my blog. It's one of the best out there, among the likes of Cloud House and Calcott Hall.

Check it out!

Given that there's bedroom furniture in the hallway, and bin bags full of stuff, it would seem that at some stage people did make an attempt to clear the place out, and then gave up, which adds to the mystery a great deal. In the past, urban explorers have been known to sensationalise these sort of places. Cloud House, for example, was once said to be the former home of a man obsessed with time travel, before he mysteriously vanished. The evidence? The former occupants collection of pocket watches, of course.

And as much as I love the concept of a man building a time machine in rural Wales, the occupant probably just liked pocket watches. People often look for a huge story behind these kind of places, and that's understandable given the atmosphere they generate, but in truth the majority of these homes were owned and lived in by normal, ordinary people like you and me. Well, maybe not me. 

Based on the belongings left behind in this house, it's fairly obvious that this was a family house, with many of the belongings dating back several decades. The house itself appears on Victorian era maps, but with little information attached.

There's a Mickey Mouse coat hook placed over a book called "Brush up your French again."
This book was published in 1950.

This bottle of "fresh milk" looks like it dates back to 1950 too! Yum!

This newspaper is relatively more recent, dated 1985.

There's a card here for a competition regarding the local village hall development, which was entered by the couple who lived here.

There's a box of vintage christmas crackers.

Check it out! Vintage Fairy Liquid!

And here's an old fireplace bellows, which we don't see much of anymore, in the era of radiators and such. As a fun fact, the term "bellows" derives from the Old English "Blaestbelg" which literally translated to "Blast Bag." For any millenials reading this, this was used to blow air onto a fireplace while simultaneously doubling up as something that looked nice ornamentally.

The kitchen is a bit of a mess.

There were large quantities of old medication, all with the same surname as the couple who lived here. I often find the discovery of medication to be a grim reminder of our mortality, while simultaneously providing an insight into the final years of the occupants. Cetiprin, for example, is used to treat elderly patiences with night time incontinence. Also present are pain killers.

Here's the matching Minnie Mouse coat hook for the Mickey one in the hall.

Vintage razor blades.

And records! This is the soundtrack of The Student Prince, which dates back to 1954.

The donkey is perhaps the creepiest thing I've ever found in an abandoned house, or so I thought until I found the toilet.

It's still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs though!

Onto the dining room, where it's slightly less messier.

There are three televisions in here, which supports the theory that things were in the process of being cleared out. I'm particularly fond of the one that looks like the garden is pulling it towards the window. Nature is slowly finding its way in here.
 But if this place was getting cleared out, why did they stop? The most recent date I've found in this house so far is a newspaper from 1985, and people from this village who are in their late twenties now remember this place being abandoned when they were kids, so how long has it just been left like this, and why?

I wonder if this was the occupant, back in the day.

The lounge is still furnished, albeit messy.

There's a book on lawn tennis and croquet, dated 1938. It had the family name written across the front, in pencil.

But by far this rooms biggest attraction was the vast quantity of vintage photographs.

Memories of an entire lifetime are strewn here, never to be looked at again, the stories known only to the people in the photos, and dying with them. And what's this?

"Dear Santa Claus, as it is war time, will you please choose my presents? With love from...,"

Now that's morbid. This is a kids letter to Santa, presumably from World War 2. This should be in a museum!

 This is one bizarre find, and it reflects on the era. The youngster, whose name is gender neutral, is well aware that times are hard for everyone, and is simply happy with whatever they get, just because receiving a present of any kind in those hard times was lovely. What a nice child.

Incidentally, the name is different from the other names I found, which is quite telling. Clearly the couple who lived here, whose posessions are dated mainly around the 1930s and 1950s, had a child. This was probably the family home, where the kid grew up, and the couple grew old together, hence the medication and the newspapers from the 1980s. 

So what became of the child? They'd be pretty old now too, if they're still alive.

And here's a pedigree certificate for a dog, specifically an English Springer Spaniel, who was born on 2nd May, 1933.
I think it's safe to say the pooch is no longer with us.

Is this the author of the letter to Santa?

And look, it's Hitler! Now I'm reich outside mein kampfort zone.

There's also a book on first aid and a book for expectant mothers- Two very caring items ironically placed next to the fuhrer.

Here's a book called Mrs Beetons Household Management.
This book was first published in 1861, and the author, Mrs Beeton, died in 1865. She was pretty famous though, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle even saying "Mrs Beeton must have been the finest housekeeper in the world, and therefore Mr Beeton must have been the happiest and most comfortable man."
Of course, times were different then. Everyone can help with the housekeeping now, and a few inches of muscle between the legs used to faciliate the removal of body waste is no excuse! But still, whatever era you're in, nobody likes living with a slob. Mr Beeton probably was pretty happy. Although it's safe to assume that the contents are pretty old fashioned and probably pretty sexist by modern standards, this book was still in print as recent as 2016!

But as anyone on the internet in 2016 knows, in 2016 the world changed forever, when the Ghostbusters reboot abolished prejudice. Yes, it was an internet bloodbath for a while, but wasn't it worth it? The patriarchy has been destroyed, women are now free to leave their cages and vote, and queef jokes have led the way to global equality. Isn't it great?
Yes, of course I'm being sarcastic. The movie failed to justify its own existence, and female leads in movies are hardly new.

But I digress. Let's take a glimpse at this book...

Here's a nice chapter about where everyone should sit around the dinner table, and all that. Most of it's pretty redundant and conforming for a time when the gender roles of a household were much more old fashioned.

There's a letter here, dated 1954, which discusses the repairs of an engine by a company called Trix Ltd, who made model trains.

Here's a newspaper dated 1979.

Playing cards.

A scythe.

A darts trophy.

And this is pretty eerie, and multiple people had to hold lights behind it just to make it visible, since the camera flash negated the image, hence the iphone in the corner. If you can't tell, it's a chest X-Ray.

Moving upstairs, I was expecting less clutter, given that a lot of the posessions have been dumped downstairs.

 Here's a Guinnes book of records, with Christmas 1968 written on the inside cover.

Is this a vintage hairdryer?

 The bedrooms are eerie, mainly because they're less cluttered but still fully furnished. The windows have also broken, and are letting in nature.

A book on summer jobs abroad from 1986.

 And here's a copy of the Daily Mail from 1987. A lot has changed in the last 30+ years. Today the headline would read "The Killer Immigrant Stepfather."

 There was this adorable Charlie Brown book about happiness.

There's a sink in the last bedroom, which I found a little odd, but reminiscent of another house I went to years ago.

 There's a seashell collection up here, which must have meant a lot to someone once.

A photo of two girls holding apes. 

And more medication!

There's still towels hanging up in the bathroom.

That appeared to be it, but before I could leave, I still had to check out the attic...

 It's some kind of childrens chemistry set, maybe?

 And an old table football game.

 Okay, I take it back about the donkey in the kitchen. This policeman is the creepiest thing I've ever found.

Given that there's a large quantity of childrens things up in the attic, it seems likely that the child or children of this household grew up and moved away, and the couple who lived here grew old until they eventually died. Of course, if their kids were children in the 1940s then they might still be alive, albeit pretty old, perhaps now with their own kids and grandkids, assuming that the family lineage continued.
If it did, then why is this all still here? This house could be beautiful if it had a little effort, and so much of this should be saved.
The open bottle of vintage milk can get chucked, sure, but those photographs depict an entire family whose history is confined to these walls.

The coolest find was out in the garden, although it was inaccessible and almost completely missable.

 Check out the curved corrugated iron. It's an old Air Raid Shelter!
These were commonly known as Anderson Shelters, named after Sir John Anderson, who was in charge of air raid precautions in 1939, and they truly reflect the fear of war time. They were distributed to every household, for £7 unless they earned less than £250 a year.
£250 a year sounds crazy, but in 1939 that was worth a lot more than it is now. If a house had no garden to erect a shelter, there would be a community shelter for those families.
In the event of an air raid, when the sirens would go off, the entire family were to stay in these constructs where they would be safe from falling bombs. It would be fitted with bunk beds, so that the family could sleep with some measure of comfort while the Nazis flew overhead.

It's the sort of thing that really drives home how lucky we are to be living in this era. The 1940s must have been terrifying. Our country was at war with Germany for six years, and during those six years civilians had to adapt to life with bomb shelters and blackout curtains.

It's said that for every civilian killed during the blitz, another 35 were made homeless by it.

The sad irony of the World War 2 blitz is that Hitler was initially reluctant to take the war to such lengths, going on record stating that he alone would be the one to decide if British civilians were to be bombed, but 100 planes went behind his back, under some flimsy vague direction from Goring, and bombed London. The RAF retaliated by bombing Berlin, and Hitler was actually disgusted, thinking at first that the British had struck the first blow. As such he promised massive retaliation and so began the nightly bombing of London. If Goring hadn't given the word behind Hitlers back, some 50,000 British civilians, and ten times as many German civilians, may not have died in the blitz.

This shelter is inaccessible but I'd love to see what's inside it. If the house is still fully furnished, then the shelter might be too, although given that I'm running on the theory that the couple who lived here during the 1940s and 1950s grew old and passed away around the 1980s, its possible that the shelter was put to another use after the war.

Of course, it's all a mystery, but that's part of the appeal.

My understanding is that this house is now inaccessible after urban explorers discovered it, and the local villagers caught on. Nevertheless I hope that someday someone comes back and does something constructive with it. It's such an amazing house.

That's all I got for today. Next blog post will be an abandoned house in Shrewsbury, and then after that I think I'm doing another one in the Shropshire countryside. In the meantime, don't forget to like my Facebook page, Follow my Instagram, Subscribe to my Youtube and Follow my Twitter.

Thanks for reading!