The Belvidere

(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. Under UK law, trespass without force is a civil offence. I never break into a place, I never photograph a place that is currently occupied, as this would be morally wrong and intrusive, I never take any items and I never cause any damage, as such no criminal offences have been committed in the making of this blog. I leave the building as I find it and only enter to take photographs for my own pleasure and to document the building.

Updates on this "local" blog have been infrequent, largely due to me working more on achieving my dream of being a serial pest worldwide. On my international blog, you'll find tales of abandoned nursing homes, underground wartime railway depots, a Soviet tank barracks and the occasional abandoned Nazi base. But this time I'm focusing on whats right on my doorstep.

Hidden away in Shrewsbury is this little gem, although I'm not sure for how much longer. The Belvidere is alleged to be facing somewhat imminent demolition. It's a little out of my way, so I hadn't actually heard of it until news came out that it was going to be flattened. I've never come here in its glory days, so I can't really comment on what it was like, but people do have fond memories, and I do believe that places like this should be documented before they're gone forever. This blog isn't just for you or me. It's for people years from now looking back. Our content on the internet will outlast us, so it's important to think big picture.

To address what may be an elephant in the room, I visited this place prior to the present lockdown. Covid-19 is something that I do take seriously. I'm quite lucky because for me, lockdown is an absolute doddle. I still have my hobbies, including writing this blog, and I still have my job, and my income. And since I was a social recluse before, nothings really changed for me. The biggest difference is that social media is more of a cesspit than usual. It's all just neighbourhood witch hunts and raking in the virtue points on there. I think a lot of people are frightened, and you can't yell at a virus to make it go away, so they try to feel in control of the situation by taking out their frustration on dog walkers, cyclists, and happy people.

I'm quite the optimist. Yes the death toll is scary, but imagine if the people in the 1300s suffering from  bubonic plague were told to just sit in the house for three weeks with electricity, clean running water, sanitary products, and clean food, while doctors who actually know their shit worked around the clock on vaccinations and counter measures. We're pretty lucky.

But I digress.

I'm not sure if it was always the case, but the Belvidere was also partially an Indian restaurant, with the signs outside still advertizing the fact, showing up on streetview as far back as 2009. The phone number has since been defaced, likely by the former occupants when the service stopped. From what I've read, the Indian restaurant "experiment" was discontinued in 2015, although I am skeptical of my sources there. It's a bit weird to keep the sign up in spite of no longer serving indian food. Although the pubs closure was in 2016 so maybe they just didn't get around to changing it.

Also parked outside was this van, which has certainly seen better days. How this got here, and why, I don't know.

As for the Belvidere pub, I was initially intrigued by its name. A belvidere is basically part of a structure that allows for a scenic view. In this case it refers more to the name of the area than to a literal belvidere, and looking at old maps I discovered that back when all this was fields, Belvidere Road actually led up to a massive country house called Belvidere, so I assume it had something to do with that.

The name is also reflected by the Belvidere School that happens to be right next door to the pub. I've actually managed to find an amusing photo of the schools frontage from back in the day, amusing because the newly erected pub sign being in such close proximity implied that the school serves alcohol, something which greatly displeased the headteacher.   

(Photo not mine, obviously)

I'd make a joke about a bitter head, but let's face it, it's probably already been done.

Now it's quite a peaceful neighbourhood. So much so that I wasn't expecting the pub to be accessible. This really doesn't feel like the sort of place where youths smash windows. I've been to derelict pubs in very Jeremy-Kyle-like areas, where I expect to be stabbed upon entry by drug addicts or something, but the Belvidere is in a quiet little area, so I was quite shocked to discover that I could just walk right in. The local kids were scurrying around it too, happy that they'd smashed a glass door and now had their cute little den to play with. They didn't give me any trouble. Why would they? I look like a serial killer.

For a pub on the verge of demolition, there's a lot left! I was expecting it all to be cleared out. Certainly with the kids scurrying around I assumed it would be a little more vandalised at least. It's almost like a time capsule, with only a few signs of decay. With a little TLC this could be ready to go. It seems a shame that it's going to be flattened.

The pub itself was apparently built in the 1960s as one of two pubs built by Banks Brewery to serve the new houses that were popping up as Shrewsbury expanded. The Belvidere's sister pub is The Charles Darwin, named as such to remind us all once again that Charlie D was born in Shrewsbury.

Go ahead and take a shot. Personally I don't play the Charles Darwin Drinking Game anymore. I want to survive!

My friend Alice, who came with me on that adventure to the abandoned castle mansion, and that derelict student accomodation block, claims quite hilariously that she attended the Belvidere School, and would come here after hours and be served alcohol in spite of being in her school uniform.
And apparently other students did too!

Of course, this wasn't the more recent landlord. From what I can tell, there was at least one change of hands since my chums were in secondary school.

And before we get all witch-hunty, let's face it, we all remember a time when pubs everywhere were a little more relaxed about the whole age thing. In fact I remember the time when my local pubs really started clamping down on it. I'd just turned seventeen and suddenly I couldn't get served anymore! We were all pretty miffed! Not as miffed as a boomer who has just been told that gay marriage is okay. I mean, we weren't firing off our AK-Qwertys in badly written English. But we were miffed nonetheless!

Theres a games machine here.

It looks like the Belvidere Golf Society had a display board here, but all their memories have since been taken down.

I don't know for sure but given that this is quite a spacious area with minimal seating, I assume there was a pool table here or something. I might be wrong.

If there was then it's strange that it's been taken away while so much has been left. I guess someone somewhere had a place for it.

Even now this pub still felt very homely. It still smelled of alcohol and it's easy to imagine what the place was like when it was open to the public.

And look- live porn!

Exiting from the bar, I found the main entrance, barricaded to prevent entry quite efficiently. The toilet doors were also locked so gaining access to them was impossible. Someone had smashed the glass of the ladies though, allowing a glimpse.

The cleanliness is probably owed to the fact that vandals can't actually get in.

So this lounge is where the Indian restaurant area would have been, although after February 2015 it was converted back to bar use.
Interestingly I've been told that in the 1970s and 1980s, the ladies largely kept to this lounge area while the gents frequented the bar area around the front, and that back then it was impossible to get a seat because the pub was so frequently packed. How times have changed. 

Built into the walls are these old fish tanks. They go straight through the wall so that they're visible in the next room too. I imagine it would have been quite a pretty feature back in the day. My friend Casi, who has also explored this pub with her husband Joe, told me that she'd heard an awful rumour that upon closure the owners of the Belvidere had simply left the fish to starve to death. So as I entered, I did wonder what I would find here. It reminded me a little of that story a year or so ago about those urban explorers in Australia who found a dead shark in an abandoned aquarium, albeit my version of the tale would have less impressive fish.

Fortunately it was just a rumour. There are no dead fish here, and the fish tanks are completely drained.

The restaurant area led around to this little back area, and thanks to Trip Advisor, I've been able to get photos of what this place used to look like.

Photo credit: Trip Advisor

Yup. Pretty much as you'd imagine. Just the same, but clean.

Trip Advisor is also good for reviews. Of the Belvidere, there were only two bad reviews from 2013, one claiming rude staff and the other claiming that the food made them ill. However the majority of reviews were great, often referring to the Belvidere as the best place to get Indian food in Shrewsbury.

Photo credit: Trip Advisor

As you can probably guess, from the fact that my picture shows a distinct absence of glass in the door to the garden, this was the way in.

Behind the bar was this cupboard, mostly full of clutter but one notable feature is the sign advertising live music.

Pinned to the wall of the staff area was this note from the enigmatic "H" which threatened cut pay if the cleaning wasn't completed by the end of the shift.

Don't fuck with H.

The kitchen area has several years of clutter gathering dust.

This bottle in the fridge is a little disturbing. Stupid mistake on my part. Never, ever look in the fridge.

Yum!

Someones made an attempt at barricading this door too, but rather poorly.

There was a single stairway, which I was rather reluctant to climb at first. The pub is one thing, but the rooms above tend to be former homes. I wasn't sure what to expect up here, but I kept it quick.

All personal belongings have gone. Only the furniture remains now.

Apart from these photos of military aircraft that have somehow been left unvandalsed. These were found and laid out by some of the kids who were scurrying around. It's a shame that these are still here.

In the kitchen there's a flower on the cupboard. It's a lasting remnant of the former homeliness.

The doors in from the roof have also been barricaded, but I'm pretty sure behind all the boards, the windows were smashed.

Here's the lounge. The cushions have gone, but the sofas and armchairs remain.

And here's the office.

And lastly, the bathroom.

That's all I've got for the Belvidere. As predicted by just how over-accessed it was by the local kids, and the fact that it's in a residential area, the fact that it was open at all was about as subtle as the holocaust, and it didn't take long for it to be sealed up. A Shropshire Star article from 2019 has made it official that the pub will be torn down and replaced with seven new houses, and that's kinda sad. This wasn't my pub of choice but it was someones. Everything mattered to someone once, and that's why documenting them before they're gone is important. It's great that people are going to have somewhere to live, but what about all the amenities, and all the other attractions that give a community some character? I think that stuffs important too.

Anyway, that's it for today. Next time I'm blogging on the other blog, about an abandoned garden centre, which is something new, and then there's a good old abandoned house in the countryside. It's going to be fun. In the meantime, share the blog, follow my Instagram, Like my Facebook and Follow my Twitter.

Thanks for reading!