Sawmill

When you've been doing urbex this long, and specifically a blog about local places, it's always a nice treat to be reminded that there's still cool things to find. 

There's an old sawmill and timber yard that once served a nearby estate, and it's surprisingly easy to miss to the casual traveller. My opulent entourage and I were not the first people to sneak in and snap photos of it, but when comparing my shots to other urbex shots from as far back as 2013, surprisingly little has changed. The local kids haven't even been in to scrawl a penis on the wall. The decay here is entirely natural, and it is refreshing to see. 

With not a lot of information online, research involved more creative methods than Google, but it was worth the effort because I've been able to find vintage images of it. 

Here it is in the 1950s, just after closing its doors for the last time. 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

There's another photo of this sawmill from across the water, from 1924. 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Allegedly there have been a few deaths in the water here, including suicide. And even though I've got the names of the people involved, I've not been able to verify it with any news sources.

That's not to say it's not true. It just means I can't say for certain that it definitely is. 

There are other ruins scattered around, but a lot of it is overgrown.

And in the timber yard itself we can see where the tracks used to be. Timber was taken via a narrow-gauge wagon into the saw mill. 

The tracks lead directly to the saw mill doors, with the natural decay taking over, lining the tracks with grass like a Delorean powered by veganism. Let's slip inside!

Isn't it awesome?

As always, to tell the story of a place we really need to focus on the people that this place mattered to, and using the census data I've managed to trace back the workers here to 1861, to the Vaughan-Jenkins family, in particular William Vaughan-Jenkins. Infuriatingly for my research, the family lists their names differently on various different documents. It's only on Williams marriage documents to Elizabeth Roberts in 1851 that the full name is given. Otherwise William typically referred to himself as either "William V Jenkins," or just dropping the V entirely. 

The marriage records refer to William's father, Richard, as also having the occupation as a sawyer, so he might also have worked here.

Worth noting, I had no idea until researching this blog that the term "Sawyer" was the job title of someone who operates a sawmill. I guess it makes sense. A lawyer is someone who works with the law, and a sawyer is someone who works with a saw. I guess this is probably where the surname "Sawyer" comes from too. 

I don't think Richard Vaughan Jenkins worked here, because the census data lists him as living more towards Wrexham. But William absolutely did. In fact he actually moved into a house right next to this sawmill by the 1890s. 

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of William, but I do have one of his wife, Elizabeth. 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Articles from 1865 list William as a timber merchant, alongside a man named George Haines. The two got in trouble with the law for misusing a traction engine. Smoke-abatement laws at the time called for traction engines to be able to consume their own smoke, apparently. I don't know anything about traction engines, but there are numerous news articles from the era about people getting into trouble for not enabling their traction engines to do it. 

On the 1861 census, William was listed as a sawyer, and he lived with his wife Elizabeth and three young children, Sarah, Mary Ann and Thomas. Unfortunately Mary Ann died at the age of six, but by the 1871 census they had an additional pack of crotchfruit, Arthur, Charles, Alfred and David. 

The sawmill is amazing. I love the way the ivy hangs in. There's leftover machinery everywhere. There are still wheels on the tracks, although why they're disembodied from actual carts escapes me. But with a bit of a nudge, they still rolled along.

There's a giant hook hanging from the ceiling, once used to lift timber. But the real eyecatcher is the giant circular saw next to the tracks. 

Curiously, absolutely none of William's children followed him into the family business. Being the oldest, Sarah was the first to break with tradition, becoming a dressmaker. I have found a photo of her too. 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Thomas emigrated to Australia at some point in the early 1880s, and died in 1927. There are photos of him out there too. 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Arthur, at the age of 20, was boarding at a blacksmiths house with a few other men, and ended up working as a postman. Charles became a grocers assistant in Oswestry before becoming a sewing machine salesman. Clement also moved to Australia. 

I have a photo of him too. 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

By the 1890s, William and Elizabeth lived right next to this sawmill. Their neighbours, the Paddocks and the Davies, were all farm labourers on the estate. William operated this sawmill.

By 1901 their dressmaker daughter Sarah came back to live with them as they grew old. She never married. 

I can't help but feel that there's a bit of sadness to this family. Something is lurking beneath the surface that hasn't been conveyed in official documents. I do find it curious that all of the sons fucked off as soon as they could, and not one of them stuck around to carry on the family trade. I think it may have something to do with the death of Mary Ann. Tragedy and trauma can sometimes drive a wedge in a family, particularly in how they treat their surviving children, maybe overprotective or the opposite, emotionally distant. It's not unusual for children raised in negative households to flee the nest and get as far away as possible. 

Sarah stuck around, but she was the only child older than Mary Ann, being nine when she died. Sarah is the only child who would actually remember their lost sibling, so she might have sympathised with the parents grief a bit more. The other kids may have suffered more for it, and grown resentful. 

But that's just a theory, and it is almost completely baseless. I just find it weird that the siblings all scattered. 

Completely unrelated, while researching the children, I came across another tragedy from 1938, that of a different Thomas Jenkins who lived in the same area, working on a different estate. As a groundsman he carried a bottle of cyanide, which was a historic method of fumigating wasp nests. He also carried a bottle of water. One day his wife came to see him at work, with their infant child. He said he was thirsty, offered some drink to his child, who luckily declined. Thomas took a swig and then realised the horrible truth, saying "Oh dear, I have drunk from the wrong bottle." His wife ran for help while he tried in vain to make himself vomit, even to the point of shoving soil down his throat to make himself gag. But alas, when his wife returned with help, he was dead.

What an awful story.

It must seem a bit distasteful to regurgitate such a horrible story and immediately following it up with my elation at the sight of this old sawmill wagon and circular saw. I assure you, I took a moment to let the story sink in, and even though the story had nothing to do with this sawmill, once I discovered it, I felt it was more disrespectful to leave it to be forgotten. 

Nevertheless it can't be understated how happy I am at this sawmill. Just look at it! 

The wagon still rolls on the tracks, even after all these decades. The saw likely still spins too, although I wasn't about to try it. A little TLC might actually bring this place back to full working order. 

Let's see where this door leads.

There's a tiny room which must have been the sawyers office. It's cluttered but still delightfully preserved.

If you look closely, that's a calendar hanging on the wall, and it gives the date of December 191X. The last digit has fallen away, but we can still see that the 3rd of December fell on a Wednesday, which means this is either from 1913 or 1919. 

That's incredible. William Vaughan Jenkins died in 1910 so this must have been hung up by his successor, and it's never been taken down.  

It's a little odd seeing as the sawmill operated until the 1950s, but I'm not complaining. 

And check this out! There's still tools hanging on the walls. This is a true time capsule. The last sawyer put these here for the last time in the 1950s and they're still here. 

1930s documentation lists George Lancaster as the sawyer here, although he more commonly went by his middle name, Bob. He was actually a sawyer from Lincolnshire. He married a woman named Florence Hindley in 1924 and they came to Shropshire for some reason. 

Out of curiosity I did a rudimentary search to see if Florence is related at all to Myra Hindley, but I found nothing. But rather amusingly, George Lancaster does have a sister called Myra. 

Alas, I can't find photos of George Lancaster! I've found his parents, his brother, his sister and his grandparents, but none of George himself. And his family had nothing to do with this place. They would have stayed up in Lincolnshire. It's quite infuriating.

What I do know is that Mr Lancaster wasn't alone here. He had two colleagues, named Harold and Jack Clarke, who were brothers. The Clarke brothers were previously farm labourers, although Harold spent some time as a watchman at a military camp too. 

The sawmill closed in the 1950s and has been dormant ever since. 

There's a couple of rooms at the back of the sawmill.

There's a couple of spare sawblades over there. 

And this cool sawmill next to the window. In another few years this could be entirely encased in ivy. 

However, I do believe the estate are looking to bring the place back to life. There has been activity on the site since our visit, and it's genuinely got me hopeful. All too often places like this fall victim to the magical fire fairies when developers fail to get planning permission to turn them into houses. If a place can be renovated and brought back to life, that is always good news.

Meanwhile, we headed downstairs to the cellar...

The cellar is pretty awesome. 

No doubt this part is directly beneath the large chimney.

Check it out! Here we're directly under the giant circular saw next to the wagon. Good thing I spotted that. At six foot two, one mis-step, and this sort of thing could easily give my brain some air conditioning. 

And that's all I've got. 

The sawmill is awesome. It offers a glimpse into the history of the area, and it is remarkably well preserved. In the urbex world, we seldom find places that aren't ruined by vandals and looters. This place is exactly as it was left in the 1950s, and that's pretty cool. It's a real time capsule.

And best of all, it won't be left to fall into ruin. There are plans to fix it up, and they are also compiling the history of it. Maybe someday I'll come back here in a more traditional tourist capacity. Maybe I'll finally get to see a photo of George Lancaster.

In the meantime, if you like my blogs then give my social media platforms a follow. Obviously I'm on Facebook and Instagram, even though being on these sites is basically a form of self harm. I'm also on Bluesky, Vero and Cara, which are basically what Twitter and Instagram should be but aren't because they're run by cunts. The userbase is smaller but there's no algorithm to worry about. It's awesome. Join me there maybe.

Thanks for reading!