The Mortuary

A little while ago, the BBC decided to take a break from feeding me the entertainment equivalent of syphilis, and actually caught my attention with the story of this tiny mortuary. What made this mortuary interesting was that it was right next to a very active cemetery, but forgotten in some bushes since the second world war, until it was rediscovered completely by accident in 2019.

I had intended to seek a permission visit, but my chap on the inside wasn't able to arrange it. Then I forgot about it, until the urbex community started going there. And when a location starts trending with the UK urbex community, it's a little like keeping milk past its sell-by date and being told that you still have to drink it anyway- the longer you wait, the worse it will be. 

Some turnip had ripped out a few of the roof tiles to make the building accessible. It was disgusting vandalism of something historically significant, but nevertheless, thanks to the drudgeons I now had a means of entry, so I decided to pay it a visit. And I decided to drag Joe and Casi of Heart and Arrow Tattoos along too, because last time the three of us went urbexing in this town we ended up getting a mention in the newspaper by a seriously ticked off "leading" politician and it wouldn't feel right returning here without them. And also, Casi and Joe are super talented and I figured they would probably make a sexy video out of the place. And because I'm lazy with my blog, that video is already a year old. Whoopsie! I'll add it below. 

The little mortuary was built in 1939 to serve as an overflow facility for the hospital when all that business with Germany really started kicking off. It only closed four years later, in 1943. Perhaps its brief usage is the reason why it so easily fell out of everyones memory, but due to being forgotten for so long and engulfed in vegetation, it was also perfectly preserved. This is a true time capsule.

The means of entry was through the hole in the roof, and also making use of a door that was propped up against the wall for its ridgy bits to act as foot holds, presumably by whoever had made the hole to begin with. Joe, Casi and I spent a couple of minutes figuring out what to do, and being probably the heaviest, I decided to climb down first. If the door took my weight, it would probably take theirs. If it didn't, I guess I'd just have to live there and they would have to bring me food. At least I'd have a bed.

As I was climbing down, Casi and Joe spotted someone lurking in the shadows. Someone was already in there! And with my back to the mortuary as I climbed down, I was completely oblivious! At least, until the person spoke and I lost my footing in shock and slipped the rest of the way down the door in all my dyspraxic glory.

But who was it? It was Lee! The chap who runs the Abandoned Places UK group on Facebook, and not a kidnapper looking to bundle three sexy urbexers into the back of a van and sell us on the dark web. That was a relief. And also a lost opportunity. My ass is a total money pit. 

 

Lee also does urbex, and seems to share a similar moral code to myself, of enjoying a place as we find it, changing nothing, not forcing entry or vandalising anything, you get the idea. Similarly, he'd seen the mortuary pop up on social media one too many times and concluded "If I don't see it now, it will be destroyed by the time that I do." We've gone on a few adventures since this one now, and his Instagram can be found here.  

Now onto the little mortuary!

 

The mortuary is small and cute, with peeling paint and a great big slab in the middle next to a sink. Naturally we all took it in turns to lie on the slab for cheesy corpse shots of ourselves. After all, why waste the opportunity? Next time we're on one, we won't be alive enough to know what it feels like.

 

And let's be honest, when I finally kick the bucket and end up on a slab like this, I'm just going to be seen as a job to do, not a person who once had dreams and aspirations, and a full head of hair. At least on this day I got to enjoy being dead, surrounded by three of my friends who actually know me. It's like my funeral, but with more people.

 

So, uncomfortable with the concept of actual death and being forgotten, but knowing that it's ultimately inevitable, I want to talk briefly about the lives of some of the mortuarys... clients(?) whose story ended in this tiny room, lying on this slab. 

 

As expected, both British and German fatalities ended up here, so many that details are sparse. Of the Germans, there were four whose Heinkel was shot on the 8th May 1941, exploding in mid air and crashing into a farm near Wrexham. But I can't find their names anywhere. I assume at the time, they were simply regarded as enemy combatants, and while the Germans no doubt kept track of the many casualties of the war, just as the British did, they aren't going to know who ended up in which British mortuary, so those details are likely going to remain elusive.

 

But then there are the victims of the German bombings in the area, the majority of which happened between the 28th August and the 1st September 1940, usually by the Luftwaffe trying to find Liverpool, something they often achieved by following the Bristol Channel up the river Severn until they got to Shrewsbury and then heading north to the river Dee and following that. 

Consequentially the borders of Shropshire, Wales and Cheshire got absolutely peppered. The civilians of towns such as Oswestry later recalled seeing these planes flying over in large numbers unchallenged, the route not yet defended by the British military. It would be by the end of August, but by then it was too late for some.

 

So on the 31st August 1940 a German plane had bombed a hill. I'm not sure why. Apparently in addition to military decoy sites, it was not uncommon for the home guard to light fires in the countryside to draw planes away from heavily populated areas. Either way, a German bombed a hill, and a lot of the other German pilots saw the fire from the initial bombing and assumed there was something worth bombing there, and so also bombed the hill. One bomb hit Plas Ucha Farm, a building owned and ocupied by a chap called Peter Morris. Miraculously he escaped, but his two sisters and a farm worker were killed. I was actually able to find an image of the farm, with three people stood in front of it, presumably Peter and his two sisters.

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(Photo credit- Wrexham-history.com, obviously.)

 

It's a bit odd to see. I mean, we've all seen vintage photographs before, but here stand two women who were once laid on the exact same slab that I was now facing.

Also on the morning of the 31st August 1940, the people of Rhosllanerchrugog (I'm so glad I just get to write it and don't have to say it) woke up to find that a bomb from the previous nights blitz had landed in the street, but not exploded. That is, until 8:30am. 

The bomb had landed right between two houses, one occupied by a fifteen year old named Gwilym and his parents, and the other occupied by his grandparents. Perhaps concluding that it was a dud, it was decided that nothing could be done at the moment, and everyone just decided to get on with their day. Gwilym had a job so he went to catch the bus to work. He got the bus only ten minutes before the bomb went off and destroyed his house, but he only learned what had happened when the police came to visit him at work. His grandparents had been killed, but his parents had miraculously survived, his father trapped under rubble, knocking on a wall until he was found, and his mother being rescued by the neighbour on the other side. People would later tell Gwilym that it was a good thing that he'd left when he did. But others who were innocently passing by weren't so lucky.

 

In total six people were killed by the explosion and ended up this mortuary, and three of them were children who had just said goodbye to their parents before heading off to school. It's an absolute bloody tragedy, and it must have been pretty harrowing for the folks who worked here.

The final "clients" this mortuary recieved were eight men on board an RAF bomber at 8:45pm on the 11th January 1943. It was actually on a training flight from Tilstock Airfield when it crashed onto a hillside near Bwlchgwyn. The occupants were Sgt Robert Smeaton, 28, of Middlesex, Petty Officer Ronald James Binham, 20, of Swansea, Sgt William Henry Stewart, 28, of Alberta, Canada, Warrant Officer David Rozell Roberts, 21, of Manitoba, Canada, Sgt Alex Taylor Strachan, 19, of Edinburgh, Sgt Cyril Edgar Aaron, 20, of London, Sgt David Blackburn Lister, 18, of London, and Sgt Michael John Buckle, 20, of York. As if their young ages don't make it sad enough, the few details of their personal lives that I was able to find make it even more horrific. David Rozell Roberts, for example, had just gotten married immediately before being sent overseas to fight in the war. And as for Cyril Edgar Aaron... the crash that killed him happened on his birthday. He'd just turned twenty!

 

A local child named Fred had been the first to spot the plane flying overhead and notice that it was in trouble, and while he alerted everyone, they were unable to find an authority figure. Turns out it was the local police officers night off! I guess it was a different era. 

Freds father, George, was one of the few villagers who could drive, so he took charge and drove two other men to the crash site. Of the eight men, Alex Strachan was still alive, so George and his buddies improvised a stretcher out of plane wreckage and attempted to drive him to the hospital. He died on the way. An officer actually came to see George a few days later, and rather than thank him for his efforts, told him that he shouldn't have moved him.

Maybe he was right, but that's still harsh. They did their best while lacking any actual authority figure.

These were the last corpses to lie on this slab, some of them still only teenagers. That's pretty horrific, but also quite humbling. Four of them are actually buried in the local cemetery, but the others were buried closer to each of their homes. 

But, I'm not good with paying respects to the dead. I respect the dead, but I prefer to do it silently because nothing I say does it any justice. But when young people die, all their potential future accomplishments and aspirations die with them, and that does make me sad. 

Let's get back to checking out some of the mortuarys features.

 

 Other interesting features of the mortuary include these light switches.

 

 

And also these numbered hooks.

 

 

 I'm not sure why they're numbered in tripple digits when there's nowhere near that many of them. 

There's one other room to the tiny mortuary.

 

It's just got a couple of old coffin slabs in it, and when the mortuary was first discovered, there was actually an empty casket still on one of them. In fact you can still see where it was because the dust on the slab is inconsistent. It was clearly removed but I'm not sure if that's by thieves or by the actual people who own the building. 

 

But that's it for the mortuary. It's got some sad stories associated with it, but what more can be expected from a place that was literally created for the dead during war time?

As we made our way out, we made sure to position the roof tiles back over the hole in the roof, purely to do our own bit to keep the elements out and preserve the tiny mortuary a little longer. We hoped the next visitors were equally as considerate, but when the urbex community is concerned, we were more likely to find a nun wearing a strap-on. 

Either way, the mortuary has since been sealed, and I understand there are plans to open it to the public eventually. 

Mortuarys like this are actually quite rare now, created purely for wartime and then forgotten. Apparently this is the only one of its kind in North Wales, and that makes it kinda special. It's historically significant as a symbol of the addition measures that were put into place during the war, and it's amazing that it remained undisturbed for so long. 

My next blog will be about a local pub, and then a local military base, so that should be good. In the meantime, follow me on Instagram, Twitter, that shit hole that is Facebook, and Reddit. Actually don't follow me on Facebook. It's a cesspit. I'm on the weird unpopular version of Instagram, Vero, too but it wont let me upload for some reason so that's dead. Follow it anyway in case it changes its mind.

Thanks for reading!