The Toll House

Today's post is a little one, but it's a bit nostalgic to me. It's a former toll house on the outskirts of Oswestry, and it's been derelict for decades. 

According to old maps from the 1890s it was actually part of a hamlet once, surrounded by fields until Oswestry expanded into it.

I grew up in Oswestry. I was one of those kids with long hair and a band t-shirt, inadvertently putting the fear of Satan into the towns pensioners just by existing and going outdoors. Those were great times!

And as an innocent, adorable sixteen year old, this toll house was actually the first abandoned place I ever checked out, although we were just bored kids checking out something spooky. At the time, I had no plans on moving to Shrewsbury in my 20s and making urbex a regular thing. I didn't even know what urbex was. 

The building was empty, save for a pile of mail on the floor and a load of spiders, so it came as a bit of a surprise when I returned here many years later, and found it fully furnished, but still abandoned. What's going on here?

Slipping inside brings us to what was once a tiny kitchen, but is now just full of clutter. There's a small sofa here, and there's an axe sitting on it quite ominously.

So it turns out that a couple, Christopher and Juliet, came to live here in the years since I left Oswestry. Christopher was 45 and Juliet was 50. People who knew them said that they were lovely people, and the ultimate soul mates, having been together for about twenty years. That's a hell of a long time. I get sick of someone after twenty minutes!

 

Christopher and Juliet were apparently homeless, having been evicted from their home allegedly for under-occupying it. But I want to make it clear that this is hearsay. My source claims that they had more bedrooms than they needed, and the council presumably wanted to give the property to a larger family.

But that could all be bullshit. I've learned from past experiences that I can't say "allegedly" enough. I've learned that from blogs where, if I took a shot for every time I said it, I'd be on dialysis. So it's important to repeat that this information is unverified. 

 

But regardless of how it came to be, Christopher and Juliet ended up here, where they kept dogs and sold timber. That explains the axe.

There's a very grubby-looking bed.

 

So initially back in my teenage years, I explored this place with my friend Will, and later some guy called Josh who ended up part of our posse somehow. We were originally too afraid to go upstairs. Can you believe that? Past Me was a wuss. But Josh and I went upstairs on our later visit. We'll get to that...

Will and I originally found our way around the house via candle light. You know, as good goths do. No torches for the flamboyantly morbid. And it was right in this corner, where the table and chair now sits under clutter, that I ended up setting my hair on fire when I leaned forward to look at something. I forget what I was looking at. Such things don't stick to the memory when ones head goes up in flames. 

Now there's just loads of abandoned possessions left behind.

The story of the house took a rather tragic turn in 2017. Plans were apparently underway to get Christopher and Juliet some social housing property, so that they'd no longer be forced to live in this derelict shell that didn't even have running water. But sadly they were found to have passed away. After an investigation it was concluded that they had died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty generator, but opiate intoxication was also said to be a contributing factor, presumably because of how it can affect the breathing. The toxicology report found cocaine, heroin and methadone in their systems. 

But, I am not here to judge. Two human beings dying in such a way is still tragic. I don't know the circumstances of their lives that led them to this lifestyle, but I do know that when I was homeless, I was helped back onto my feet by a support program that was axed when the Tories came in to power. And I try to keep politics out of the blog, but this is factually what happened. Now I'm a contributing member to society and a healthcare worker, but if my stint as a homeless person had been a little later, I could well be in a similar situation to Christopher and Juliet today. It's a scary thought, but it reinforces in me the firm belief that we should at least provide people with decent support to improve their lives. If we don't, then we doom them to failure. And it's all too common that people judge and condemn people for their situations, while simultaneously not offering any decent support. We're all just doing what we can with the hand that we've been dealt.

Here are the stairs. Well, what's left of them anyway. When I came here all those years ago, there was a complete staircase, but the bottom steps have since fallen away and been replaced by a chair.

At the very top of the stairs is a bathroom. But I don't remember the door being like this, with the crescent moons. It's possible that Christopher and Juliet had the door fitted to give the place some personal flavour, but that seems doubtful. Look at the handle. This thing is ancient. I assume that in my childhood it was just a feature that I missed.

Similarly I don't remember the bathroom being blue. But I do remember there being a bath in here. What happened to that?

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

The upper floors gave me a very uneasy feeling, but that could just be my imagination. Of course it goes without saying that it's incredibly unsafe up here. There's some clutter, but it feels more like this was used for storage more than anything.

This thing pulling the door shut is relatively new.

With the windows almost completely missing, the mass of ivy that covers the house is reaching in.

 There's another room at the back of the upper floor that I've not been in before. When I did come here as a teenager, I ventured upstairs with my friend Josh. But he went through the doorway up ahead and started shouting gibberish and ordered me to leave. He said I was in danger from evil spirits or something. I thought maybe he was just a bit of a daft cunt, but he was into that sort of thing. 

He later said that he'd spent years in the spirit world, where time works differently, and claimed that he'd even fathered a child there.

I haven't heard from him in years. Hopefully he got help. 

I'm actually really open to the supernatural, but it's a lot like a conspiracy theory. They start out making a few good points. Someone says something like "These moon landing photos seem a bit dodgy, and I think they may be faked. Perhaps NASA faked the landing in order to 1up the Russians during the Cold War." 

And I can buy that. That sounds plausible and realistic, and perhaps worth looking into. Then all of a sudden there's a video trying to prove that there's a moon base up there, and that Hitler is there, or that the moon is a hologram or something, and like that you've lost me. 

The supernatural is similar. I could really get into it. And then people like Josh come along, talking about making ghost babies with ectoplasm sperm, and it just switches me off.

Well the back room doesn't have anything to see, apart from some wonderful decay. No evil spirits tried to possess me. I wasn't taken to the Black Lodge and replaced with a buff doppelganger. It's just a room.

So in conclusion, I was quite saddened to hear the story of Christopher and Juliet, and my condolences go out to their family and other loved ones.

If anything can be learned from this, it's that support for the homeless needs improving. Nobody should have to live in a place like this, where one fart could bring the roof down.

 

On a personal note, it sure was strange revisiting this place and finding that it had things in it. That caught me completely by surprise.

In fact it was strange just revisiting Oswestry. I do miss it sometimes, but all the people and things that made it home have moved on. I can return to Oswestry, but "My" Oswestry isn't there anymore, if that makes sense.

But that's all I've got. I've been neglecting this blog for my international one for some time, but I'm going to stick around here for a bit. I'm sure it will annoy all the right people. I have a blog about a chapel coming up next. In the meantime, the best way to get updates on this blog is to follow me on social media, so be sure to follow me on Instagram, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. They're algorithmic hellscapes, so you might not see my posts at all. Facebook has recently cut my reach, and is trying to sell it back to me. But following my social media is the best way for people to stay updated.

 

Thanks for reading!