Curtains Cottage

This tiny house was nicknamed "Curtains Cottage" back in the day, because that's pretty much all that's left. I came here years ago, and never published any of the images, for some weird reason. Granted, in hindsight the photos aren't brilliant, but that has never stopped me before!

I think what did stop me was a lack of appreciation for things like this. Of course, I've always enjoyed abandoned places, but in 2016 I was specifically looking for abandoned places that still had that "time capsule" vibe, and anything that didn't, I considered unbloggable. It certainly didn't help that at the time there were adverts on the blog, and I was making money out of it. I only got ads because I was getting regular abuse from some weird old man, so I decided to monetise his visits. I renewed my passport off the back of that crackpot. Everything you see on my travel blog is thanks to him. But it tainted my priorities somewhat, and sent me down a bit of a path where I really only wanted to cover places that I thought would do well. Removing ads off the blog was the best thing I ever did. It made it a hobby again. It means I could focus on doing what I enjoy for no other reason than because I enjoy it. I guess years of recreational trespass and narrowly avoiding death have humbled me somewhat. These wrecks still tell a story. This was still someone's home once. It deserves to be blogged about with the rest of them. So I decided to do a quick write-up on it. It's not going to set me back too much. I only have a backlog of... 83 places to write about. Oh boy. At least I'll have something to do if I ever break my legs.

Slipping inside this cottage is rather simplistic. As you can see, a good chunk of the door is missing.

It kinda makes the chain and latch rather comical. Someone once hung this up for the last time and exited through the back, believing the building to be all secure and ready for the next occupant. I guess it takes more than a little chain to secure something against the ravages of time, but I love little details like this.

 The house has some Victorian floor tiles still visible, poking through all the dirt and clutter.

 

 

And I assume this was the lounge, still retaining its fireplace. 

 

 

History on this place is annoyingly elusive. Streetview dates back to 2009, and nothing has really changed. Old Victorian maps do show it, and even name it. But that name isn't repeated on any census data that I've been able to find, which means I've been unable to match any names to the place. In addition to that, it's in absolute rural isolation so I can't even ask the neighbours if they know anything. All I've got is what I can see.

 

 There's a rather tatty curtain in the cupboard here.

 

 I assume this was the kitchen. Nature has been very busy, left unattended and just barging in. As expected, when nature comes in, structural integrity goes out, and now it's possible to look up at the bedroom above.

 

The oldest photos I've seen of this place are from 2013, and they show the floor above still being intact, albeit treacherously soggy-looking. I was still doing urbex in 2013, although it was mostly rooftop stuff in and around Shrewsbury. I was just starting to venture out to abandoned houses in rural areas. So really, I guess if I had found this place any earlier, my life as an urbexer could have gone downhill faster than the true crime genre would if men ever learn to handle rejection. I'd be totally fucked, out in the middle of nowhere. 

 

 So, having established that the upper floors are about as trustworthy as Prince Andrew at a children's birthday party, it's time to head upstairs!

 

 

It's still nice up here, although is is just a mess of peeled wallpaper and ceiling debris. 

 

 There is an attic but we won't be going up there.

 And here is the shot that gave the house its nickname. This is the room directly above the kitchen that collapsed at some point after 2013. The curtains make this particularly eerie, being so neat while the rest of the house crumbles around it. It's mad to think that one day someone opened these curtains for the last time, stepped outside and never came back, and now nobody can touch them. 

But this was someone's bedroom once! That's what really gets me about wrecks, and it's so easy to overlook. Someone once slept in this room. Someone once painted it this adorable shade of blue, and hung up these curtains thinking that these two colours looked really nice together. They'd be heartbroken to see it like this.

 

 

I do love that older houses had fireplaces in their bedrooms. I kinda miss fireplaces in general, if I'm honest. They add character to a room, and given that I live in a featureless modern square that's younger than me, I'm a little bit sad.

 

The other bedrooms are slightly more intact, although I'm not about to go prancing across them. I'm afraid to so much as sneeze in these rooms. They are very pretty though.

 

The pink bedroom is very small, and probably belonged to a child. Now it just has a tattered curtain flapping in the wind.

 

Aaaand that's all I've got for this place. There isn't really much really. I'm sure there's a toilet shack somewhere in the tangled mess of brambles that encompasses the garden, but I'm content to leave it there.

This house is cute despite being small and empty. It's a total wreck but a pretty one. Its complete lack of history intrigues me more than annoys me, like it's a problem to be solved more than anything, and maybe I'll figure it out someday. But really, a blog on this place is long overdue. I went here years ago, and I've been sat on these photos for years. That's rather ridiculous. 

As always if you like the blog and want to get regular updates, then social media is the way to do it. Alas, unlike 2006 when social media was just about posting our shit for our friends to see, now we have to contend with algorithmic hellscapes that just want our money. So I can't guarantee you'll see anything if you do follow me, but I'm on the main ones- Facebook, Twatter and Instagram, and I'm also on Threads so that I can log on occasionally and see a random post from a person I didn't follow that seems to serve only to bait me into an argument (fuck you Zuckerberg) and I'm on Vero and Blue Sky, where people can just post shit, and the people who follow them will see it, the way it should be. 

Thanks for reading!

Teddy Bear House

 

This random house was the "place to be" for urban explorers for a while, at least for the ones who like abandoned houses. This one does have something that sets it apart from the rest though. The garden contains a legion of teddy bears. 

And a few long term readers might wonder what I'm doing at a place that looks this modern and structurally sound. I know what I said about houses only a handful of blogs ago. Something along the lines of "I know houses are controversial in the urbex world, because for some reason so many urban explorers are hell bent on finding the least decayed one, and that leads them to finding pristine "time capsules" that take us back to the far flung era of 2021, and then the owners family walk in, fresh from the funeral, and say "Excuse me, Mr Urban Explorer, kindly put down my dead nans brassiere," and then the urban explorer goes on Youtube talking about the psycho Karen selfishly trying to ruin their adventure. It's a morally dubious practice, ruined by morally corrupt imbeciles with the combined IQ of an Ikea flatpack wardrobe, and that is why I prefer the absolutely wrecked places. Nobody can misconstrue a wreck."

But this one does have a rather compelling gimmick and it's literally right down the road from where I live, so shut up, Me.

 

This entire layout is rather creepy.

 

 Slipping inside was a piece of piss. The door was wide open, having had its lock broken by youtubers in desperate need of dopamine. Much to my delight, there's still stuff to see.

 

 

The tin of various marmalades is quite cute. 

 

 Apparently the phone needed washing.

 

 

There's a big rubber rat on the kitchen counter, and it did make me do a quick double-take. No doubt it's been placed there specifically for that purpose.

 "Susie" appears to be the name of the former owner. But I'm really not that interested in disclosing too much else, because it all seems a bit too modern.

 

Ordinarily with houses, I do like to dig up old census data and track the families back over multiple generations into the Victorian era and beyond. But with places like this, I'm not really interested. This is all too recent. The previous owner probably still has living relatives, and I'm a renegade historian, not a stalker. I'm here to document out of morbid curiosity more than anything.

 

 The lounge all feels a little too arranged too, with its not-quite symmetrical layout and books placed neatly on a central table.

 

 

The newspaper is dated 2004, giving an indication of when the home was last occupied. But this just adds to my suspicions. This place has clearly been broken into. The kitchen has been ransacked. Things have probably been nicked. This room is a little too tidy to have been abandoned and exposed to looters since 2004.

 

Towards the other side of the lounge, my suspicions were confirmed. It's an absolute mess, but the TV stand is positioned in a way that means nobody on the sofa or armchairs would be able to comfortably watch the TV. They were put around that central table for the sake of a photo. 

And it's annoying because the thing is, unlike other urbex sites, like factories, cinemas, chapels and whatnot, houses are a lot more personal. A factory or cinema may become derelict due to financial reasons. A house usually becomes abandoned because someone died. This was someones home once. It's an entire memorial to someones life. I know the state of abandonment gives it a certain eerie sense of fascination, but there's no excuse for rearranging these places. A good urbexer won't change anything.

This newspaper has a headline that really hasn't aged well!

It's time to head upstairs!

This room is quite nice. Its circular window makes it pretty quirky, and the pink walls would indicate that the owners granddaughter may have stayed here sometimes.

There's a calendar from 2011 here. 

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

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

The bedrooms have a bit of character. There's another huge teddy here.

There are some documents here, which I understand belong to the homeowners daughter, appropriately censored.

The owner was seemingly a fan of Take That, but that's not surprising. They do seem to have that "mature woman" demographic.

They also supported Wolverhampton football club.

The master bedroom has clearly been rearranged by urbexers. Nobody is going to perch a mirror like that, with numerous books propped up by the wall as if on display. This was staged for shots. There really isn't any such thing as a "time capsule" in urbex. This is just a time capsule of the day the last urban explorer was here.

There's a teeny crucifix next to this book.

Tiny Jesus!

And with the house covered, it's time to head back outside and see the rest of the garden, in all its teddy glory.

 

So while doing some rudimentary research on the place, I did learn something rather disappointing. One such urbexer has apparently staged the whole thing, arranging the teddies in the garden to make the place look creepy. 

 

And like that, the illusion is shattered. 

Rearranging a dead persons house is not the flex you think it is. It certainly isn't urbex. If this was your own grandparents, you'd be miffed.

 

 

The thing is, people do judge someone based on their home layout. I came here wondering what kind of eccentric person lived here, and other people who aren't as open minded may have judged the previous owner as maybe being a bit weird and creepy. And I know it's just words, but maybe the last occupants family won't like their deceased relative being portrayed in that way. Am I making sense? 

So the identity of this house has all been staged, perhaps to the owners detriment, all so that we might all click on some bozos video and add some ad revenue icing on their JSA cake. It's wrong. It's not what urbex is about.

 

 

Teddies aside, what we can discern from the garden is that the owners liked gardening and grew their own food. They also had grandchildren, as evidenced by the super soakers.

 

 

There's this long plush dog draped over the vegetable patch. Aren't these long plushies actually for practical purposes? They're draught blockers. They go on the ground in front of the door to stop cold air getting in through the crack at the bottom

Apparently it suits some youtubers interests better if it's out here in the garden.

 

 

This little owl is cute. 

 

And that's really all I've got for this place. What began as intrigue and wonder was quickly drowned by disappointment as I learned the truth about this place, and now my opinions on other urban explorers have returned to their status quo, which is cynicism and lethargy. 

If you are planning on getting into urbex, then my best advice is that your integrity is more valuable than your follower count. A good urban explorer understands that.

Next, I'm blogging about a house I visited years ago and completely forgot about. It's an absolute wreck and I want to share it. I think I need to document something that actually feels abandoned. I always feel a bit dirty after going to places that are trending with the urbex herd. I need to cleanse myself with something awesome.

In the meantime, the best way to stay up to date with my blog is to follow me on social media. I'm on Facebook and Instagram, reluctantly so since both are algorithmic hellscapes. I'm also still on Twitter, which is full of people bitching about women. I'm also on Threads, which is full of people bitching about men. And I'm on Blue Sky and Vero, which seem to be giving a platform to ordinary people who just want to post cool stuff without drama and bickering. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of coming online and being baited into bickering. Just let me post my blog and my photos!

Thanks for reading!