MOD pool and saddle club

Hey chums! It's been a while since I showed Telford some love. If you follow my travel blog, you'll know that I've been doing some urbex in Greece, and I've still got more to come. But on my non-globetrotty days I still like a slice of the local urbex pie, and Telford doesn't disappoint. I did, rather infuriatingly, visit this place once only to realise that I hadn't brought my cameras memory card. Let me tell you, it's frustrating to see a place like this when the thing around my neck is just a big expensive paperweight. Needless to say, I went home for the memory card and promptly came right back! And despite the dedication, my pictures are still shite, but hey-ho. Let's dive in!

 

What we have here is a saddle club and a swimming pool, both on the site of an old Central Ordnance Depot, although by no means encompassing the entire area. Military stuff is huge, after all. Development of the depot dates back to 1936, but obviously with all that drama with Germany, it expanded pretty damn quick and had about 9000 staff at its peak. It was a chap called Brigadier de Wolff who argued for civilian staff accommodation too, leading to about 1,500 houses being built. 

Apparently in the 1980s this was one of the largest military store complexes in Europe. And evidently, for recreational purposes, it encompassed a saddle club and a swimming pool too.

 

 

But in recent years, the area had a complete do-over, focusing instead on logistic support for the military and as such it has a more civilian workforce and no longer requires quite as much military presence on site. As logistics expanded, the barracks were decommissioned, and the pool and stables fell into civilian use.

There are rumours of armed guards doing regular patrols with dogs, but I think it's safe to say that such rumours are greatly exaggerated. I have yet to be shot or mauled. But let's not lose hope. I could really do with a sick day.

 

In urbex circles (everyone roll your eyes together now), write-ups about this place tend to have a lot of Copy and Paste, and anyone with a single brain cell can see that they haven't actually read what they're copying, because the copy and paste comes from the MOD Donnington Wikipedia page, and doesn't actually talk about the pool or saddle club at all. It just prattles on about the Parsons Barracks and the Venning Barracks, and how they're due to close at some point around 2029. That's probably a big deal to a lot of people, but it's not really relevant here.

I've seen urbex "reports" where people comment along the lines of "I'm confused, what does all this have to do with the saddle club and pool?" And the OP just responds by copying and pasting the Wikipedia article again, but somehow blunter, as if the confused person is the stupid one for wondering what a saddle club has to do with a wikipedia article that doesn't even mention it. 

Imagine a school history class where the teacher is like "Read page 30 of your textbook and fill out the worksheet questions about the Battle of Britain," and the student is like "Miss, this isn't a history textbook, it's a Wetherspoons menu," and then the teacher gets mad at the student for wondering what an all day brunch has to do with the luftwaffe.

This is why you don't copy and paste your history, kids. 

 

 

Slipping inside the building itself, we found that it's all still decorated with various horse images. Judging by the background buildings, this horse portrait was taken here. My research has given me a range of names of horses that once called this place home, or work, depending on how they might feel about carrying humans around, and thanks to the internet and equestrians love for photographing their steeds, I have been able to put faces to a lot of names. This one, I've been told, was called Thomas. 

 

 

All the safety notices are still in the noticeboard.

 

 

And here are a few of the old stables, photo-bombed by the latest member of my opulent entourage, Iorek the pooch, the Scooby to my Shaggy, the antithesis to my goth vibe because every time I go near him I end up covered in white fur. His owner Gemma is around here somewhere too. I guess she's the real Shaggy to his Scooby. Goddamn that meddling kid.

 

 

I've seen a few urbexers say "It's hard to find history on this place," but that's because they're looking at MOD Donningtons Wikipedia page. And I genuinely do approach these blogs with the attitude of "Lets be positive and not roast anyone," but they're pretty much throwing themselves in the back of the ambulance and asking to be taken to the burn unit pre-emptively. Do better research! Read a damn book! In particular, read "Making it happen," by Carl Hester. He's allegedly one of the worlds greatest equestrians. His horsey antics have got him Olympic gold medals and whatnot, and his book mentions this exact saddle club, and says that around 1996 it was ran by a lovely lady called Marcia Kelsey, who owned a horse called Democrat. 

 

And right there is your thread. I followed that lead and I was bombarded with information. Also running the saddle club was a chap called Alan who once constructed a home-made flail mower that exploded. They taught horse-riding lessons here at least as far back as 1980. They had a Shetland Pony called Jenny. According to a post from 2010, horse riding lessons here cost £14 and were every Saturday and Sunday until 12pm. 

So much for being "hard to find history." Seriously how is it 2024 and people still don't know about Google?

 

 But let's talk about Democrat. Here's a photo of him and Carl Hester. 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Marcia purchased Democrat for £2500 off a boat from Holland, with no idea what his breeding was. She entered a competition in Horse & Rider magazine where the winner would get to have a riding lesson with the legendary Carl Hester, and that's how they met and presumably became friends. According to Hester's book, Marcia did suffer with arthritis and realised that Democrat would best reach his full potential with a more experienced rider, so asked Hester to compete with him. The two seemingly made quite the team, being national champions in the late 1990s.

 

And I happen to have firsthand accounts that this famous horse did live here for a bit, with photo evidence and everything.

 

(Image credit: Katie Beth)

 

 But when he passed away, it's said that Marcia stopped coming to the saddle club. She must have really loved that horse.

 

There's a cute little office here, with a fireplace and pictures still hanging up.

 

And now onto the best part of any abandoned building, the toilets...

 

Still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.

 

So according to urbexers, the riding club shut down in 2007. 

According to people who actually taught horse riding here, it was actually 2011. 

 

A Facebook post from one of the instructors, dated September 2011, reads:

"On behalf of Marcia and Alan, we'd like to thank you for all your support over the last umpteen years. We've made some life-long friends and have a lifetime of memories to share. The lease on the land was not going to be offered to the stables this year so things moved quite quickly. All the horses have gone to fantastic homes..." and then she invites everyone to one last get together at Wrockwardine Wood football club. 

As to why they couldn't get a lease, rumour has it the MOD wanted the land back, but at the moment they seem to have done nothing with it.

 

 

According to one of my horse-knowabouty friends, this building has an exterior mirror so that riding students can keep an eye on their technique and modify where required.

 

But for one last little tidbit of history before we move on from the stables, I happen to have found this photo by a former riding instructor, Pauline, which shows the stables back when they were occupied.

 

(Photo credit: Pauline Norton)

It's quite a wholesome image, really. I'm not really a horse person, but I can see the appeal, and like any pet, they do bond with their owners.

 

 

I think this might be an old mounting step. 

 

 

There's a few other store rooms. 

 

Now onto that goddamn pool!

 

The swimming pool area is by far the largest building on the site, and while the entrance has a big wooden board warning people not to enter, the door it's obstructing is actually unlocked, and being six-foot-something, I simply stepped over. Whoopsie.

 

 

Above the door is the Royal Logistics Corps logo. They were formed in 1993, which would indicate that the pool itself was retained by the military much later than the stables were, and that kinda makes sense. I imagine horse riding is probably a more niche recreational activity that swimming.

 

 

And it's pretty nice in here. The pool dates back to the 1950s, and was primarily used by Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers personnel, although the RAOC no doubt had a dip too. 

But it has undergone some modification since then. For starters, it was once outdoors, flanked by two nissen huts that served as the changing areas. Those huts are now connected to this giant shack.

Allegedly, and I really want to put emphasis on my use of that word, this tiny blurry image shows this pool in its open air glory days.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

There are actually countless testimonies about the pool, but they all seem to be along the lines of how cold the changing rooms were, and how they had to remove ice from the pool in the winter.

 

 

As well as the obvious modifications, such as now being indoors, the pools shallow end was apparently not quite as shallow once. Work was done to make a shallower end, at which point a dumper truck allegedly got stuck in it. That sounds kinda hilarious.

 And military usage aside, the pool has also been used by local primary schools, and training for lifeguards, Telfords Underwater Search Unit and the local scuba diving club in the late 1980s. In the 1990s families could even hire the pool for events. No doubt there's loads of fond memories here. And that really is why I prefer exploring old leisure sites. I know a lot of people like houses, and a lot of people like industrial stuff, but for me, places like this will have the most fondest memories, shared by hundreds or even thousands of people, and that's what makes them so sad but also so awesome.

 

 

There's a random phone in the pool for some reason.

 

 

Doors on either side lead to the changing rooms. 

 

 

And they're pretty strict about hygiene. I've never seen a pool order people to wash their feet before entering. 

 

 

Here's the male changing room. It's got a pretty unusual aesthetic with these unswimmingly brown walls, but I kinda love it.

 

 

Nature is creeping in, which I just love. There's absolutely no vandalism, just natural decay. That's very rare in the urbex world.

 

 

Someone has yoinked the toilet but, you know, it is Telford. It's probably someones coffee table now.

 

 

Onto the ladies... 

 

 

The ladies changing area is a little more aesthetically pleasing. 

 

So rumour has it the pool closed in 2002, but I think if there's one thing I've learned from this write-up, it's that I can't trust anything urbexers ever say. It actually closed in 1999 when the Royal Logistic Corps regiment disbanded. 

But that's all I've got for now! I actually really enjoyed this place. It's not often that something so cool pops up in such close proximity. But as always, it's a delight and a privilege to be able to document my local history. I know it's not exactly a saga spanning centuries, but all of this was important to people once, and when it's all been bulldozed I like the idea of people looking at urbex photos and feeling nostalgic. 

My next blog will be a folly, and then on my travel blog I'm talking about something in Greece. It's going to be awesome. In the meantime, if you enjoy my blog, or if you're a crack-addled pensioner who wants to obsess over someone young and sexy, follow my social media accounts. I'm active on Instagram, Vero, Facebook, Reddit, Twatter and sometimes Threads if I remember. 

Thanks for reading!