I actually found out about this house via a Youtuber, although I very rarely watch urban exploring on Youtube. This one got my attention though, because it's in Shropshire and the youtuber really blueballed me by being completely unable to get in.
They were stood around the house for ages talking about how the place was completely sealed, and I was sat there at home watching and thinking "The upstairs window is open. They're building up to that discovery, surely." But no, after about five minutes of mooching that felt like thirty, they concluded that it was inaccessible, got back in the car, and drove off, leaving me screaming at my computer "THE UPSTAIRS WINDOW IS OPEN, YOU BLIND BERK!" And as the scene transitioned to their next explore, I was left deeply unsatisfied.
So I had no choice but to go there myself, with my friend and rooftopper from Telford, Niall.
And it was amazing!
I don't have any external shots of the house, because we went at night, but that's okay. The internal shots are far more appealing. It looks like the set of a horror movie.
This house proved easy to research, being on the property of a larger building which sold in 2017. The larger house dated back to 1859, and this smaller, derelict house, was described as a two-bedroom lodge constructed on their land in 1910, and last lived in around the 1990s.
The bathroom floor, and half the toilet, are somewhat absent.
Quite interestingly, during World War 2, when numerous European countries suffered Nazi occupation, a lot of European governments sought refuge in the UK, and the larger hall was temporarily occupied by the exiled Czekoslovakian government. I'm not sure if they had a use for this lodge too, but I assume they had access to it, which is pretty cool. However, it's also simultaneously sad to see a building with an interesting history falling to ruin.
There's a little Christmas Tree here.
And an old Christmas card.
It's little things like this which make me curious. At a glance, this looks like a reasonably dull ruin, but on inspection one realises that this was a home once, albeit roughly two decades ago. Most of the personal belongings are long gone but that always raises the question, if a house gets cleared out, why are certain things left behind?
The lounge was where things got really interesting, as it was still furnished.
By far the best discovery in the entire house was this vintage radiogram, complete with record player.
This thing is gorgeous, and totally sat here waiting for someone to give it a little TLC. Wouldn't it be awesome if this could be made fully functional again?
There was a pretty creepy vibe in this house, but in this room in particular, although I don't claim anything supernatural happened. If anything, I have only questions. Why was this all left behind?
Perhaps it's like that wise person once said- "If you die, what would happen to all your shit? Oh, you have an answer? Good for you, because these people didn't."
Except I can't keep a straight face while refering to that quote as coming from a wise person. It came from me.
The stairs were cut off about half way but replaced with a ladder, as if at some stage someone wanted to prevent access upstairs, but then someone else brought a ladder in to make it accessible once again. Oddly enough this seems to have been done post-abandonment. Urban explorers have written posts on this place as far back as 2008, back when one could still enter the house via the door, and they state that there are no stairs. So at some point someone, likely an urban explorer, brought this ladder in, prior to it being sealed up.
Or perhaps the house was sealed up, and someone else climbed up through the upstairs window, found the ladder upstairs, and lowered it down to access the lower floors.
There are a couple of birds nests up here, but like the house they are also unoccupied.
In the first bedroom is this wardrobe, standing ominously away from the wall. There's some graffiti up here, indicating a point when this house was more accessible.
An old bed.
The creepiest part of this room was a wall covered in pictures of rabbits, wearing clothes and playing musical instruments. It's the sort of thing that children are supposed to find endearing but has some kind of impossible-to-place creepy quality to it that probably only gave the children nightmares.
The second bedroom is a little more exposed to the elements, and the floorboards are slowly rotting away.
And onto the bathroom!
It's seen better days, and the floor is pretty much impossible to traverse, with the floorboards gone and the beams rotting away. It's only a matter of time before all this comes crashing down to the floor below.
It's still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and nightclubs though.
What does the future hold for this building? Well the main hall was sold in 2017, with the additional info that the lodge comes with it but would require complete redevelopment. As of yet this redevelopment has not happened. Sad as it seems, it may be cheaper to demolish it rather than fix it up, which is a shame. As creepy as this place is, it could become a cosy little home.
That's all for today. Next blog post I'm either doing something in cool Shrewsbury or something utterly awesome in Wales. And at some point I have a derelict nuclear bunker coming up. In the meantime, don't forget to love yourself, and if someone says to you "Why do you love yourself, you're no better than me," respond to them with "So why don't you love yourself too?" That's the key to a better world, right there.
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Thanks for reading!
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