The Pastel Chapel

As a few of you will know, I love old mines. They were a long-term ambition on this blog, and I did eventually get to write about some here in Shropshire. Shortly after I did a few more elsewhere. They're very cool, and addictive, so naturally I decided to look for more. It was mapping out local mine shafts that led me to accidentally discovering this disused chapel, likely used by the miners back in the day. I decided to swing by and check it out.

It's really cute inside, but lacking any of its former pews. The central carpet remains, with its adorable "Nans House" vibe.

Over by the remains of the pulpit there are a few more bits left over, which is quite nice. I'm glad it's not just a featureless shell. I'm also weirdly fond of the green and pink pastel colour scheme. It's like being in an old Poppy video. 

While I haven't seen it specified in any official sources, it seems to me that this was likely attended by miners, given that the mine industry was in full swing at the time. In fact in this particular area it was undergoing something of a resurgence, having stopped in 1785, and restarting again first in the 1820s and then in 1862. The local newspaper in June of 1865 told of how the chapels very first foundation stone was laid here, and how there was something of a party to celebrate that this tiny rural area was finally getting a place of worship, with a collection plate being passed around to gather the funds.

Apparently for the occasion they set up a very large tent, borrowed from a chap from Clun. Tea was available for the congregation, which was addressed by a Rev Webster of Congleton. Congleton is out beyond Stoke-on-Trent so it seems a bit unusual that he should be here. Keep in mind, transport in 1865 wasn't what it is today. Today Rev Webster can make the trip in an hour and a half (after you've dug him up, of course), but there wasn't any motorised transport back then. It's a little surprising that someone would make that trip for such a small chapel. In fact, even the chap from Clun had a bit of a trek, and the lady who laid the first foundation stone came from somewhere near Bridgnorth. 

 

Nevertheless, the event allegedly attracted three hundred people. That might not sound like much, but it definitely looks like it exceeds the chapels capacity. More people showed up to celebrate its construction than could ever possibly fit inside it. Also worth noting is that according to the 2011 census, the local area surrounding the chapel only had a population of 76. What's going on?

I know there's a huge space of time between 1865 and 2011, but could the population have seen such a staggering reduction? All these fleshbags talk about is shooting their DNA into each other.

 

So how the Hell (sorry, God) was the ceremonious laying of a foundation stone for a tiny rural chapel such a people magnet? It was clearly in high demand, and the only reason that sounds even remotely logical is the abundance of mines in the area at the time. But that's just my theory.

Despite the majority of the chapel being cleared out, this little beauty is still here, making the chapel not entirely featureless.

 

But it seems the chapel is a shadow of its former self. Despite its small size and rural location, the local rag spoke very fondly of it throughout the 1860s, expressing how happy everyone was that they finally had a substantial chapel, for just a measly £180. But don't get too excited. According to the Bank of England, that was the equivalent of nearly £17,900 back in 1865. 

 

I was initially confused when the local papers said that this is the only chapel in the area, given that there is a tin tabernacle just up the road, and it shows up on OS maps from the 1890s, but some quick digging confirmed that it had only gone up in the 1880s, after the article praising this chapel had been published. The tin one is still being used today, albeit sparingly, and it's surprisingly pretty inside. But I bet it didn't have such a great construction party!

Up above what was once the pulpit are the words "Reverence my sanctuary." 

Religious places are, shall we say, ironic in their slogans. The ones that say "God Loves" slay me, given that in the bible he actually does very little of that. Here the irony is a little more on the nose, given that this sanctuary has not been revered in some time. 

The poster has one of those classic Jesus slogans. We get it, he's better than us. Can we move on now?

These cushions have sat here for so long that cobwebs have grown between them.

I don't have an exact date of closure for the chapel, but it was said to be open in 2000 and closed in 2012. This toilet paper is dated 2001, which certainly seems to indicate that this was the year that the chapel was last used, although we can't be certain.

I did read that all of the tiny chapels in this area had their own little church camps, often consisting of camp-themed worship in a field, with music, and snacks. This chapel was apparently one of the few in the area to retain its bible camp into the late 20th Century, after many others in the area stopped happening, which is kinda wholesome, if you like bible camp.

Now onto my kind of wholesome!

There's a door in the ground! How exciting! I sure hope "Reverence my sanctuary" includes having an erection.

I lifted the door aside and decided to have a peek.

It's nothing too exciting, unfortunately. It's a cellar built into the buildings foundation, and it's basically a crawlspace. I wasn't about to go down there, nor did I need to, given that I could see it all just by hanging my head over and shining a torch around. Had anyone walked into the chapel at that moment, they would have just seen my arse up in the air with my head in the ground, like a hot satanic ostrich.

Over by the wall appears to be some wooden steps, which is interesting. The pulpit platform has steps on the right but not on the left. Presumably at some point it was symmetrical, but the stairs on one side were taken off and thrown down here. 

Back to the surface!

There's an old hymn sheet here. Personally I find hymn music to be quite lifeless and dull. Are people really celebrating their faith this way? Would they not get into Heaven if it was a little more upbeat?

And aside from Spider-Zilla over here, I think that's about it.

After its closure there were plans to convert the small chapel into a house. It's presumably during this time that the pews were removed in preparation. But then planning permission was denied, allegedly due to the local drains already working at full capacity, and not wanting an additional human residence to clog the pipes. From that point on, the chapel seems to have fallen into ambition limbo, with the clearing out paused, and the work never to be done.

 

This place made for a cute excursion. In spite of the lack of pews, I still liked it. And with it being something I found by accident, that makes it a bit more gratifying. I don't know why people in the urbex scene beg for locations when finding them brings about its own rewards. I was looking for mines, and I found this little gem. I call that a win. It's just a shame that it's now gathering dust and slowly rotting away. It would be nice to see it restored and given new life, and it's not exactly in a dire state of dereliction, so that is a realistic possibility.

That's all I've got. I'll be focusing my attention on the international blog for a bit, talking about an abandoned pottery death trap, and some sort of college building that I think has more of a story to it than I initially thought. That should be fun to research! In the meantime, follow me on various social media platforms. I'm most active on Instagram, but I also post on Reddit, and Twitter, and because I just love self harm, Facebook. 

Thanks for reading!

Another ROC bunker

If you live in the UK, there's a good chance that you live within 10km of one of these lovely Cold War relics. This is a nuclear monitoring post that was manned by the Royal Observer Corps back when nuclear war was considered a very real possibility. Initially the Royal Observer Corps, or ROC, were tasked with spotting and reporting enemy aircraft from special monitoring posts in the countryside.

But as the Cold War took off, the ROC facilities moved underground, and their duties changed to monitoring for nuclear weapons. To this end, 1,563 subterranean bunkers were established all over the country, each one filled with equipment designed to monitor for nuclear blasts and communicate the findings across a wider network so that appropriate action could be taken. 

 

The ROC bunkers were also equipped to keep their staff safe, and if there's an urbex comment bingo then "We might need these soon," should be on it because ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, every time someone posts one of these bunkers, someone comments that underneath.

 

Needless to say, after all these years anyone who thinks a ROC bunker will provide adequate protection against nuclear strikes today is deluded, and we could honestly do without you in a post-apocalypse society, but stick around anyway so that we've got something to eat, yeah? 

 

Here's a diagram of a ROC post being used. It's not my picture, obviously, but ROC bunkers were built mostly identical, so it's an accurate depiction of what this one would have looked like back when it was active. As you can see, it's pretty tiny, but built to be lived in if there was a crisis. If you want to imagine hell, imagine being stationed down here with your most annoying work colleague in the event of a nuclear strike. 

 

Just take a deep breath and remind yourself that you'll need something to eat when the rations run out.

 

The ROC bunkers were built in 1963, but most of them were decommissioned in 1968. A few were retained until 1991, including this one. At that point, what happened to them seems to vary from place to place. Some were sealed up, perfectly preserved. Some were left open and vandalised. Some were flat out demolished. The aim of visiting ROC bunkers is to find one that's accessible and in good condition. They do exist. I've blogged about a few now. But there is an online database that says where they all are, which means they aren't secret. The admittedly noble intention of documenting these places on the internet has proven to be their downfall. For urbex purposes, it's handy to have a database that says where they are, but it's woefully out of date, so traveling out these is still a gamble. One of my favourite local ones recently had a boulder cemented over the access hatch. 

So I personally don't travel out solely for ROC bunkers. But this hobby gets me out and about, so if I'm ever in the proximity of one, I will swing by to check it out.

As you can see, the hatch was no longer attached to this one, and the exterior features are pretty run down. Surely only an idiot would climb down this ladder, right?

Whoopsie!

Remember folks, it wasn't the bunker that killed those kids in "The Hole." It was falling in love. Avoid that and you'll be fine.

At the bottom of the ladder, as expected, is the pump for removing waste water. In the majority that I've seen, the pump handle has been wooden, but at some point this one was replaced with a metal one.

The room itself is in a pretty sorry state. The shelves at the back are original, and on the floor there is a crate that would have contained a handheld warning siren to be used to alert the public in an attack. The old telecom boxes are still on the wall, but apart from that, it's just full of junk.

The desk, chairs and bed are gone, but what we do have is what appears to be a squatters nest.

All over the walls are sheets with pictures of big cats on them, presumably hung up by the squatter for decoration. 

In all fairness, squatting in a bunker does sound like a pretty fun wild camping experience.

Here are the remains of the telecom equipment. The majority of it would have been cleared out when the monitoring post closed in 1991.

There's a sheep skull here.

And back over by the ladder is the rest of the sheep. It looks like the sheep fell down the hatch and died, likely of starvation. What a horrible way to go.

But the hatch is on a raised platform so it's hard to imagine how a sheep would get into this predicament on its own. It all seems very ominous. I presume it was after the squatter vacated. 

 

Imagine camping in one of these things and then suddenly a terrified sheep comes plummeting down the hatch. That would certainly make the experience memorable.

At the back of the ROC bunker is a little air vent that leads up to one of the ROC bunkers external features. In this case, the external part of the vent has been pretty badly damaged.

So that's the ROC bunker. By modern standards they probably don't look like much, but they are echoes of a very different time in human history, when nuclear weapons were new, and the world leaders asses were clenched so tight that when they farted, only dogs could hear it. I think they're important relics of the past, and while it's not unheard of that some are fixed up and restored, it's still a shame when others are left to rot. Perhaps their derelict condition is symbolic of how we take our safety for granted today, or how quick we are to forget the efforts made to keep us safe once the threat is over. 

 

Whatever the case, what kind of person just lets these get into such a bad condition? If I had land which just happened to have a ROC bunker on it, I'd build a shed over the top of it, so that the casual observer thinks the bunker has gone, and then I'd make it into the ultimate mancave.

As far as urbex goes, ROC bunkers are great for beginners, because they're everywhere. So many people getting into urbex will ask "Are there any abandoned places in Whatevershire?" Yes, Timmy, there's one of these. Also, how is it 2023 and people still don't know about Google?

The more experienced urbexer is better off checking these out if they happen to be in the area, because there's really very little point in traveling far just for one of these. I really like them though. I like the fact that I never know what to expect. It makes it more of a surprise when I find one in good shape. I also find the cold war to be a very fascinating era in human history, so these are appealing for that reason too.

My next blog will be a chapel, and then I'll be back on my international blog for a huge factory death trap thing. In the meantime, to make sure you always get updates, follow me on the algorithmic hellscapes that are Instagram, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. I'm possibly one of the few users on Instagram that's an actual human being, so that's a novelty. 

Thanks for reading!

Dud chapel

Today I have another small blog, taking a break from the larger adventures I've been writing about on the international blog. This tiny roadside chapel was on my radar for some time, but it's a bit remote, so I put it off. It was just another addition to my growing list of local loose ends. I was a bit apprehensive as I approached, mainly because the above photo is what the chapel looks like, but the image below is how it looked on streetview when it first caught my attention:

Goddammit, I've been catfished by Google!

So as you can see, while the chapel was once gloriously obscured by nature, now it's been cleared out and exposed. Someone has taken an interest in it. I'm late to the party on this one. 

In all fairness though, streetview has been updated in recent years. The chapel has just been on my to-do list for longer than that, so really it's my own fault for not checking in to see if anything had changed.

Nevertheless, I'm here now. I might as well take a look, and see how much of this cute derelict chapel is left to see.

There's a couple of sheep skulls in the wall, which is quite ominous, but makes for a good picture.

I guess "Chapel of Bones" would make a great cheesy nickname for this place. 

 

Whatever happened to that guy who put bones into all the nicknames of the urbex spots for clickbait? We had "Church of Bones," and "Village of Bones." The Village of Bones actually caught on, and is still getting referred to as such by the mainstream media today, despite just being a derelict farm house, and containing no bones. The church of bones, really a chapel but actually containing bones, is more commonly referred to as Lambs Rest Chapel now, but what a legacy for that weird chap. He gets to forever point at a ruined farm house called the village of bones and say "I achieved that. That was me."

 

Slipping inside the chapel, I found... almost nothing. It was a little heartbreaking, but it's still possible to imagine how it would have looked. On the far wall it's still possible to make out the arched details above where the vicar would have addressed his presumably tiny congregation. The details, the pews, everything chapel-like, has been stripped out, presumably by the same people who cleared out the bushes and trees that were obstructing the chapel from view. 

The ceiling has some glorious decay.

So in regards to the history, it was built in 1866, but it's in a fairly remote location. Chapels like this typically owe their existence to the time before motorised transport and the railway really took off, when people lived off the land in tiny disconnected communities. For them, the chapel was a lifeline. For those who lived in hamlets and on farms, coming here on Sunday was actually their social life.This was a communal hub of sorts.

As time passed, the number of religious people dropped, and the congregation stopped being the place to be. In addition to that, the advances in technology connected the rural communities to the rest of the world. Chapels like this relied on the communities to maintain them, but with the communities themselves no longer confined to one spot, the chapels became neglected.

This one in particular must have been Hell for the congregation to get to as motorised traffic became more and more prevalent, purely because its door and steps lead right onto the road, with no pavement. Obviously it was a lot less hazardous in 1866, but in the modern era it's a health and safety nightmare. While I don't have an exact date that the chapel closed, I do know that it was disused by 1990.

Now it seems to be used for storage. Having come here to see the chapel, and finding that it wasn't what I was hoping, I decided to leave. I don't normally blog about my dud adventures, but I do actually like this chapel, and I feel like it needs documenting for its historic significance. It would have been quite cute in its day. 

But this is why urbex is important. Real urbex, that is. Documenting places before they're lost forever, not purposefully annoying security in a power station and then crying victim when they use your social media stickers to figure out who you are and take legal action. I mean real urbex. If I'd come here a few years earlier, I'd have very different images to show, but now the former interior of this chapel has been lost forever.

So that's all I've got for this spot. Don't go here. It's clearly at the start of some sort of restorative process, and it's best not to disturb any of that.

My next couple of blogs will not be duds. One's a nuclear monitoring bunker and the other is another chapel that I'm quite fond of. 

 

In the meantime, to get regular updates on the blog, follow me on Instagram and Reddit, and also Twitter and Facebook for some reason. Using Facebook is a little like performing self harm nowadays, but nevertheless I am on it.

Thanks for reading!

Abandoned Cottage

Today I'm checking out this tiny abandoned cottage in the countryside, and unfortunately I'm doing it at night time, which is less than ideal for stealth reasons, but we play the hand we've been dealt, and I happened to be here at this time of day. 

Abandoned houses have become an increasingly controversial topic in the urbex world, largely because those who care more about social media attention have a tendency to over-graze the pasture, and thereby have issues getting that precious dopamine. Consequently many "abandoned" houses that become popular in urbex have been empty for maybe six months, with the fact that the power is still on somehow being used for clickbait, and the family of the recently deceased former occupant watching in horror as every subsequent post about the house has fewer and fewer items and more stickers advertising someones social media. And that brings us to the point that a house with loads of things left behind will always be more popular with the urbex herd than a glorious mansion with photogenic architecture and fantastic history, but nothing inside that will fit inside, say, a backpack. Coincidence?

 

Personally I prefer the places that are truly abandoned. This house has been empty and unloved for nearly two decades. It's just been left to rot, and nobody is coming to save it. The fact that there's anything left to see is a mystery, and it's what makes places like this so compelling, more so than the sort that entertain the herd. I've done urbex for nearly thirteen years now, and I've done it under a few very simple rules: Don't force entry, leave everything as I find it, try not to negatively impact anyone, and don't disclose the location to those who would break any of these rules. (There is a fifth rule- when exploring anywhere that involves a boat, always wear a pirate hat, but that's not really relevant here.) 

These rules generally keep me going, and they're the reason some "urbexers" are currently facing legal action for plastering lame social media stickers all over a power station, and I am not.

There's a car parked on what used to be the driveway, but it's been smashed and encased in nature.

Slipping inside is relatively easy. The door is hanging off its hinges, in stark contrast to the windows, which are boarded up, echoing a time when someone did actually care about this place. The lower floor, consequently, has very little furniture.

But a quick look at the fireplace will reveal that I'm not actually on the floor of this house. It's just a pile of very tightly-packed rubble and litter. There could be all sorts of cool things buried under this mess, if anyone cares to dig.

There's a little retro TV here.

The kitchen/dining area is of particular interest, with its yellow and blue colour scheme and the ceiling light. And while most of the downstairs furniture seems to have been cleared out, there are a few things to see in here.

An ironing board.

There's a Beethoven record here. Whoever lived here must have liked their classical music.

The cupboards still have loads of canned goods, including cat food. The Arthur can is displaying the 1995 logo style, but the brand has totally vanished today. Arthur the cat actually has quite the saga, being the focal point of a 1960s controversy when rumours swept around that the reason he had to dip its paw and lick the food off was because the TV producers had removed his teeth.

The oven has seen better days, but I do love that cobwebbed pantry area.

There's also a photo in here. Could this be the former occupant of the house in her younger years? 

 

It's the human element that really makes abandoned houses sad. It's important to remember that this was someones home once. This house has seen many a Christmas and birthday. It was once the place that people looked forward to coming back to after a long day. They've likely passed away, and for some reason everything was left. No family came to claim any of this. It could be argued that they clearly moved some of the stuff out, but I'm more inclined to believe that the house has been ransacked. There's no reason why so much would go missing, but a photo of someone would remain, unless the photo wasn't valuable to whoever came to take stuff. 

But in the absence of anyone to take care of matters, an abandoned house essentially becomes a memorial to someones former life. As such it's rather heartbreaking to see them trashed and ruined. Its akin to vandalising a gravestone.

In the corner of one room is a rather dusty bookshelf.

Everything here is pretty old. "The Grove of Eagles" is one of the newer-looking books, and it was published in 1963.

"Below the Salt" was published in 1957, and "Queens Play" was published in 1964. A lot of these books seem to be historic fiction, taking place hundreds of years ago, about fictional characters during real-life events.

This book, "A new geography of Wales," isn't that new anymore! It was published in 1969. It could be quite interesting to flick through, and see what county borders have changed over the years.

There's a cat carrier next to the fireplace.

Moving on upstairs proved to be challenging. While it seems that there are plenty of steps, what I neglected to display was that the bottom half of the staircase is empty! This is all there is, and it starts just above waist-level. And even then that bottom step is looking quite precarious.

Fortunately I've never needed stairs to get upstairs, but given that the house is in such a serious state of decay, surely only an idiot would go up here.

Well... whoopsie! Guess I am an idiot. Let's see what we have.

The upstairs is similarly ransacked, but there's a little more to see. It's harder to get furniture down the stairs than it is to get it out through the front door, especially when the stairs are missing. As a result the upper floors have a lot more to offer.

Onto the best part of any abandoned building, the bathroom.

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

There are still things in the cabinet, which is pretty bonkers. There's some phyllosan there, which was commonly advertised as "keeping people fit over forty." An advert from 1937 claims:

"Modern conditions compel you to overspend yourselves. You are subjected to a degree of stress, anxiety and mental strain undreamed of by former generations. It's not your fault, but you must repay the debt. If you are feeling run down, overworked, devitalized, and starting to feel your age, start taking phyllosan tablets today!"

 

But what's interesting is how an advert from 1937 admits that people are overworked compared to days gone by, and is happily saying "Look, modern life is shit, so here's something to help." It's quite in contrast to scores of grumpy old sods on Facebook shrieking gammonically about how the younger generation is full of wusses for wanting to be paid adequately for working longer hours and whatnot. Here's an advert from eighty years ago, making the exact same points that are being made today.

It's almost as if every generation has been a bit shit.

 

Moving on... We have my favourite part of the house, the main bedroom.

It still has a bed in it, and pretty much every piece of furniture. It's easy to imagine how this place would have looked decades ago, back when the house was still being lived in.

As much as I would have loved to have a proper mooch around this room, the floor was sagging under my footsteps and I felt that if I ventured too far into the middle of the room, I would soon find myself in the one below.

There's a dressing table in the corner, where decades ago someone once sat to do her makeup before heading out.

And while the clothes seem to have all been taken, there are a few old possessions on the side.

There's an old jigsaw puzzle which appears to have once made a map of the UK. I'm amazed it's all still mostly in its tin, but what's especially noteworthy is that the image is printed onto wooden puzzle pieces, whereas today such puzzles are printed onto card.

There's an old medicine bottle on the side, and there's still tablets inside!

But that fluff... is that mold in there? Have the tablets exceeded their use-by date and actually grown fluff? I did a quick google search and it is possible for tablets to develop a fungal infection. Although, it is possible that someone has just shoved cotton wool into the bottle... but why would they?

Meanwhile on the bed we have a map of the Soviet Union, and English school work from 1959 to 1961. This is incredible! And it's just been left here. That's madness.

I personally prefer places with a history that I can research and a story that I can tell, and that's the main reason I stopped exploring as many abandoned houses. There's just nothing much to go on, narratively speaking. But it's the mystery that makes them appealing. Years ago someone passed away and left all of their belongings behind. Some of the belongings were taken away, the house trashed, and then it was all just forgotten and left to rot. I have no doubt that the condition of the stairs are the reason why the upper floors have more to show than the bottom ones, and that makes it even more intriguing, to think that so much can only be observed by a few. 

It is sad though, and that is why abandoned houses deserve the highest level of respect. They sadly don't always get that, but they do from me. 

That's all I've got today. My next couple of blogs will be similar small ones, but if you like the larger adventures then my non-local blog has loads of those. 

In the meantime, follow me on Instagram, follow me on Reddit, and also follow me on Twitter for some reason, and the hub of human misery that is Facebook. 

Thank you for reading!