Tunnels under Wyle Cop

 (DISCLAIMER: As an overall nice human being, I do not force entry, vandalize, steal, or disclose means of entry or location if it isn't obvious. I do this to protect locations and respect them. Trespass without forced entry is a civil offence rather than a criminal one, which isn't worth acting on unless one causes damage, steals, has ill intent, etc. I simply photograph and leave everything as I find it. I do not condone breaking and entering, and I do not condone what I do. I'm a danger to myself and a terrible role model. )

Some  will tell you that there's absolutely no truth to the rumours of an underground labyrinth beneath Shrewsbury.  But if you read this blog often you'll know that there's definitely something! Sure, it's not the Paris Catacombs or the Salt Mines of Krakow, but there's still plenty of secrets waiting to be found.

Often when I find underground tunnels, I can make it so far in before reaching a blocked up doorway, and end up wishing that I could get permission to knock some bricks through or pull some floorboards up and see what lies beyond.

A little while ago, a local business owner actually did get in touch with me to share some exciting news. Having pulled up some floorboards they had discovered that their business was in fact on top of something vast and subterranean. Something that had not been touched for years. And had they gone to the media with this discovery, I guess we'd be seeing exaggerated scandal articles describing the horror that hundreds of illegal immigrants could potentially enter our country via underground tunnel networks. Fortunately for truth-lovers everywhere and fortunately for me, the business owner got in touch with me instead. Isn't that awesome? If there's something strange underneath your neighbourhood, who are you gonna call? Me!

The company basically pulled the floorboards up so that they could utilise the space underneath to house their electricity meters, which is fair enough. But they didn't know quite how expansive it was down there.
Now I'm no architect or historian. I don't know why the underside of Shrewsbury was connected via a series of passageways and tunnels, but I am the person who is photographing, documenting and mapping their existence, and for me this was a massive step forward. Getting into the underground tunnels via a removed floorboard allows the potential to get around any blocked doorways.
I headed straight over and within minutes a ladder was lowered down into the enigmatic depths.

While I won't be giving the exact location of the entrance away, I will say that these particular tunnels run beneath Wyle Cop, and are ridiculously labyrinthian. It was pitch black down there and the floor was bog-like, no doubt from flooding.

 There's a random shelf down here. Who knows why?

 Some parts of the maze did show protrusions of modern building technology, but this is something I've seen in underground tunnels before, where various ages of architecture are mishmashed together, and it doesn't matter to the aesthetic of a property because these places are then sealed off. Sealing off is cheaper than demolishing, which is fortunate because it means it's all preserved, but at the same time it bugs me because there are so many properties in Shrewsbury that will insist that they have no cellar or anything beneath them, and they are very, very wrong.

 Here's a bricked up door, probably leading into the cellar of a local business. Ordinarily I'd be on the other side of the bricked up doorway thinking "If only I was allowed to knock a few bricks out and crawl in." Well now I was in, and it felt great. But check out that supporting pillar. It looks pretty ancient.

Looking at that door though, it has some interesting architectural tidbits.

Check out the diagonal brickwork that runs horizontal on either side of the doorway towards the top. Little things like that suggest that these tunnels weren't just serving a practical purpose. Someone once wanted them to look nice too.

It's definitely worth mentioning that in some parts of these tunnels I could hear footsteps, voices and occasionally traffic above me. As well as running underneath several buildings, these ran under the street too. The parts that ran under the street were predictably boggy. Shrewsbury is a town known for its flooding, and long abandoned tunnels aren't exactly going to have the best protection from the elements.

These steps led up to a narrow passage that turned at a right angle, before getting blocked off.

But these blocked off doorways, while annoying to some extent, didn't stop me having a lengthy, enjoyable adventure.

Here you can see some stairs on the right, but they're crumbly and ancient. And as this was such a cramped area, it was impossible to get a decent shot of them. But as you can see, they're old.

The bottom steps have completely deteriorated, and the upper steps are completely blocked off. So whatever shop I'm underneath would have had access down here many years ago.

Beyond the stairs, there seems to be wooden frame work in the wall similar to the blocked up door. Perhaps this is indicative of another bricked up doorway.

There were several other points of interest down here. One of the more intriguing parts was this arched area, which was a sudden departure from the rectangular coridors I had been scurrying around so far.

 This tunnel was pretty flooded and bog-like but I managed to scramble along it utilising the numerous chairs that seem to have just been carelessly tossed down here. They weren't exactly stable but they served their purpose.

 There are a few other blocked up passages down here and there was also this ancient looking relic.

Seriously, how long has this old boiler been down there?

One of the curious aspects of this wide arched area, other than its general resemblance to other tunnels that I've found, is its proximity and trajectory to the cellar of the Nags Head, a justifiably popular pub on Wyle Copp.
The Nags Head, still in use, has a cellar that is much, much cleaner than this one, and also a lot more modernized. However the architectural similarities cannot be ignored. I did ask if I could take a peek, and I was allowed. I won't be showing the entire thing, since I felt it was a little invasive of me, and also since the cellar of the Nags Head is split into two segments, and in this case I only need one.

Obviously, while I did have permission to go into the Nags Head Cellar, I don't actually have permission to use a shot of their cellar in a blog post about underground tunnels, and I really like it there so I want to say to the staff at Nags Head, if you want me to take this down just say so. Lets not provoke animosity in one of my favourite pubs.

Like I said, it's a lot less flooded and a lot cleaner than the other tunnel but the architectural similarities plus the trajectory and proximity really suggests to me that these two areas were once linked. If one was allowed to demolish all of the bricked up doorways, they'd probably find that the Nags Head connected to the the Wyle Copp tunnels. But why?

At this point it is all speculation but what I do know is that it's not uncommon for older pubs to have tunnels that once led to nearby churches and other religious or important sites, so that people such as monks, priests or other humans who had to repress their humanity in their professional lives could enter the pubs, brothels and other places without their reputation being ruined. The Nags Head certainly is old, dating back at least as far as 1780, has retained the same name throughout its time and has always been popular. There's a lot of history there, and predictably it's home to a lot of ghost stories and legends. Allegedly there are three dominant ghosts here- a coachman who hung himself, a woman who threw herself from a window and got crushed under a coach and horse when she hit the street, and a soldier from the first world war who shot himself. All these people had in common that they looked at a mysterious painting in the Nags Head that drives whoever looks at it to madness. It had no effect on me, but that's because I'm already differently sane.

(Edit- Someone has recently got in touch and said that their grandfather used to play in the tunnels under the Nags Head in the 1940s. If this is true then it does confirm that they were all connected at some point)

But enough of the Nags Head. If you're in Shrewsbury, go there for a drink. 

But back to the tunnels for me!!!

Beside the bog tunnel, there was another little chunk of history that had me really intrigued. The tunnels I explored opened themselves up into some kind of café graveyard.

 It's pretty creepy down here. At some point in time, a café closed down and all the furniture, cups, cutlery and signs were just left down here to gather dust.

 The cups on the table were a lot cleaner than the cups on the floor, though still pretty dusty. It seems that the table protects them from flood water and the door propped up against it protects it from drips.

 The floor was littered. Some of the clutter was sinking in the bog-like floor.

The final room that was accessible was pretty big, and had this massive bucket in it. On top of café graveyards and potential underground entrances to the Nags Head, and numerous offshoot tunnels, this is where things got a lot more interesting.

This room is right underneath the street. I could hear people and traffic above me. It was pretty surreal.
 Now keep in mind it was pitch black down here. I dont really have the opportunity to examine closely everything I see. Often I photograph it, using my camera flash or my phone to see roughly where I need to be going and what I need to be photographing. In this room there was an odd smell. I assumed I had stepped in something and would just need to wipe my feet once I got above ground level. But after a while I also felt a little light headed too. It doesn't take a genius to know that if you're underground in a confined space that hasn't been touched for years, and you smell something odd and start to feel faint GET THE FUCK OUT!
And with nothing more to see, I did just that. Only then, when going over my photos did I find out what it was I had been inhaling.

Yeah, that stuff. Shit.
Shitshitshitshitshit!

So my dizziness and faintness not subsiding, I took to Googling this stuff. It turns out Sodium Cyanide is that white stuff all over the floor, so someone had toppled the bucket at some point. It'll result in a fairly swift death if consumed, but will only form a toxic vapour if it comes into contact with certain liquids. The ground, while not exactly flooded, was pretty damp. I googled what to do should one inhale this stuff, and the internet basically told me that I was dying. Checking the internet for the meanings behind various signs of illness can be misleading, and sometimes tricks one into thinking that they have body ravaging syphilis or something. In spite of knowing this, seeing that I was about to die sure didn't help my light-headedness!

It's quite scary, thinking that one is facing their own imminent death. And I'm quite logical and ruthless when it comes to problem solving. It's why I'm so happy. I can get through anything. I'm a highly efficient survivor. In this scenario, I had nothing. I wanted more than anything to speak to my neices and nephews but they would have been in bed at this point. So I did the only other thing I could think to do and sought help.

Luckily, it turned out that while I had in fact inhaled a teeny bit of the cyanide, I had actually only taken enough in to make me feel like crap for a few days. I was reassured that had I inhaled a fatal dose, I'd already be dead. The best course of action at this point was to drink lots and urinate it all from my system.

Needless to say, I went straight for a good strong rum, with the orders "If it does get worse, dial 999 straight away."

The next morning the internet was a warzone. It was the day of the EU referendum! Pro-remainers were venting their rage. Pro-leavers were mocking them and telling them not to be sore losers even though they'd be doing the same if they had lost. Daily Mail readers were all like "Hell yeah, no more immigrants." Any pro-remain or pro-leave folks with anyintelligence at all would respond with "What are you on about? This won't stop immigration, you berk."
Families were divided, friends were bickering, couples broke up.
And I was just happy to see another sunrise. It was beautiful. 

I genuinely thought I was dying.

And before anyone like that pesky media jumps on this, I contacted the person who pulled up the floorboards and told them what I had found, and I am informed that the cyanide has since been removed and disposed of. So there is no concern for alarm.
  
But why was it there in the first place? What was a bucket of cyanide doing in a cavern under a street?

Cyanide has a long, impressive history and many, many uses. Poisoning people is perhaps its most famous use, what with Hitler swallowing it before shooting himself in the head and the KGB using it to assassinate people. Even Egyptian hieroglyphs have been found containing the phrase "Death by Peach" which has been interpreted as a possible reference towards cyanide found in peach pits. Cyanide occurs naturally in other fruits too, but not in a fatal ammount. Historically it has been used to kill rats and other vermin, which is the obvious solution to why it was down in the tunnels.
But it's also used to make paper, plastic, and textiles. It's used for photo developing, electroplating, metal cleaning and removing gold from its ore. I guess it's feasable that a company on Wyle Copp years ago might have required cyanide for those purposes but I am leaning more towards the rat killer theory. 

Keep in mind though, that I accessed this place through removed floorboards. The stairs that I found that did once lead up to the surface would not have brought me up in the same building I left, and in addition to that we have at least four blocked up doorways to other places. So it's impossible to know exactly where this came from. Let's just take comfort in the fact that the relevant people are aware and it's been taken care of.

But just think, had those floorboards not come up, this all would have gone untouched and undocumented. How much more is there to see???

If anyone in Shrewsbury does have anything bizarre underground, I would love to see it, even if it is just a bricked up archway to parts unknown. It all adds up to the developing map of the tunnels under Shrewsbury.

If you liked this blog post, please share it on social media. In this case the more people in Shrewsbury who see this, the more of a chance I'll get to photograph more places like this one. You can also follow my Instagram, and Twitter. If you can spare some change to the adventure fund please do so via the donate button at the top of the blog. But far more important to me is that you're good to each other. Literally every single time someone kills themselves the people around them will say things like "If only we'd been there for them and noticed that they were unhappy." Well there's still seven billion humans to be there for. Get going. Make someone smile. 

Thanks for reading! Stay awesome!

The view from St Nics

(DISCLAIMER: As an overall nice human being, I do not force entry, vandalize, steal, or disclose means of entry or location if it isn't obvious. I do this to protect locations and respect them. Trespass without forced entry is a civil offence rather than a criminal one, which isn't worth acting on unless one causes damage, steals, has ill intent, etc. I simply photograph and leave everything as I find it. I do not condone breaking and entering, and I do not condone what I do. I'm a danger to myself and a terrible role model. )

Make no mistake, what I do is dangerous.
But so are loads of other forms of entertainment and mundane tasks! Take driving, for example. It has a much higher fatality rate than rooftopping and that's mainly because one isn't just thinking about themselves on the road, but what everyone else is doing. And can you truly trust everyone else when the only thing stopping you from a collision is faith in their common sense and a thin line of white paint? Rooftopping doesn't have those risks because one only needs their own common sense and faith in their own abilities. It's only frowned upon because there are no hoops to jump through to get permission.

Ultimately, regardless of if you think humans were put here by a deity, or that we spent millions of years evolving from goop or syphilis, I find it very difficult to believe that we are only here to sit on our bottoms spending the first two decades of our lives being indoctrinated (educated, as it's known on the streets) into a world where success is measured by the size of the number that shows up on our bank account each month and we've got to earn that until the day we're considered too old and useless to serve the corporate machine anymore. That can't be right. Humanity deserves something more. I deserve something more. If I'm guilty on anything, it's of striving to achieve that one thing every human hungers for: Happiness.
I don't want to passively consume entertainment in those safe, sanitized attractions that require an admission fee! I don't want a pre-packaged adventure! I am the architect of my own adventure, and of my own happiness.

So with rooftopping becoming an ever popular sport in Shrewsbury, I decided to take to the rooftops once again, this time to new teritory, uncharted by myself, Tree Surgeon, Rushworth, or any other local rooftopper. What have I left to cover though? I've been to the top of both St Chads and the market clocktower, along with the rooftops of just about every major landmark building in Shrewsbury. What new challenges await?

Well there's that old church by the castle, St Nics, of course!

And who needs to actually bring along a tripod when they get to gaze at this architectural hunk of eye candy? Lets see what the view is like!

 The sunlights really against me in this shot up Castle Street but as you can see, we're pretty high up.

According to my map of Shrewsbury from 1880, this place is the site of the St Nicolas Presbytarian Chapel, and that it had seats for 500 people. Quite how far back the church dates, I don't know. What I do know is that during its construction it was going to have a proper pointy tower but due to lack of funds, it only has most of an actual tower, flattened at the top to make a really odd circular shelf, which was convenient for me because it gave me a platform to sit on.

Today, St Nics is a spa, bar and café. I have to admit, I've only actually tried the café portion, and I did enjoy the food, and also the architecture. The interior actually has very little resemblance to a church now. Reportedly work to convert it into what it is now began in the 1980s became first the Serenity Spa before opening its doors as its current incarnation in 2014. It was formally opened by a TV star I've never heard of, Fearne McCann of "The Only Way Is Essex."

In 2015 there was some controversy about the place, as local residents complained about the noise. This I find difficult to believe could have been in any large number. My source of this information is, after all, the local newspapers who don't seem overly keen on truthful stories. And on top of that, this is Castle Street we're on! It never sleeps! You've got the Vaults at one end, the Yorkshire House at the other and it's the common route from the town centre to the train station. The alleyways are frequented weekly by drunk couples arguing. One time on Castle Street a man who became known as the Trippy Apocalpyse Guy got high on some God-Knows-What and spent three days stood in his window telling the people of Shrewsbury that they were going to die biblically. Someone allegedly reported to the police that he had a gun and was shooting at them, but according to the Shropshire Star this occurred at 2am, and I happened to be walking by when he was arrested at 7:30am. It seems to me that if the newspapers were correct and he was firing a gun at people, the police would have shown up a little sooner. But that's the media for you. Telling people they are going to die is tame by 21st Century standards. Give him a gun. Why not make him an immigrant too? Heck, let's go the whole media hog and say it was Jeremy Corbyn standing in that window shouting at people for three days! Why not? The media and their need for a villain.

But enough ranting! Back to St Nics!

  Look at this view. The library and the castle look absolutely stunning. The weather was perfect for the adventure, and in all honesty, if one knows that they can have this adventure, and achieve this experience, and all it costs is a little risk to myself and a little naughty trespassing, how can I just stay on ground level? When I am doing this, when I am interacting with the world around me in a way few people get the chance to, and appreciating it in all its glory, I have never felt so alive.

Here's a close up of the Castle. It's an ancient symbol of how far this blog has come, because my mobile shots from the top of it as well as my research into underground tunnels that may have led from beneath it, was all featured in the first blog post I ever did that got a a five-digit view count. It was huge at the time, because up until then I was lucky to get a three-digit view count. But my ex messaged me one day saying "You should check your blog stats, because people are sharing it all over Facebook." And sure enough, when I checked, my jaw dropped.

People say that I don't care about what happens to me, but I think my ability to throw myself into life-threatening situations with wild abandon stems from a hyper awareness of my own mortality rather than apathy for it. I don't really have the words to elaborate much on that. I've been to rock bottom and I've come back. It's made me ruthless in that I won't hesitate to cut out people I feel are detrimental to my mental health, without fear of being alone as a result, because I know that I can survive being alone. It's also made me ridiculously caring for those around me because I know what it's like to suffer alone and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But I guess after it all, I've reached that point on the journey that they call "Fuck it." I don't want to say that I live each day like it's my last because that's not strictly true and it's such a cliché line anyway. I think I live each day like it's my first. Every breathe of air, everything I see and hear, and every sensation feels brand new, like I'm experiencing the world for the first time. And I wish I could phrase it better but I think you'd have to just trust me that it's an awesome feeling.

As a final touch on St Nics, the little circular shelf actually has the base of a flag pole on it. Long ago they could have flown a flag from this unfinished tower, but from ground level nobody even knows that this little chunk of history is up here. And this is the sort of appreciation of my surroundings that my bizarre lifestyle has awarded me. I see things that would otherwise go unseen.

Earlier I said that loads of mundane tasks are more dangerous than rooftopping. I used driving as an example. But do you want to know the Number 1 mundane activity that's more dangerous to you than anything? I'll tell you what it is.

Watching TV.

The human organism sits down and watches for the sake of watching, their soul bombarded with the fear mongering and the mindlessness that spews forth from the artificial eye of education. We're made to feel miserable, and worse, here in the UK we pay TV licensing fees! We pay to sit on our bottoms and be made to feel miserable! That is the world we live in! When I told a work colleague that I don't watch TV her immediate reaction was disbelief followed by the question "So what do you do with your time?" It wasn't a question of curiosity, but of confusion. She simply couldn't grasp the concept of living a life free of the mindwipe. TV is dangerous because before you know it, your life is behind you and in spite of all your attentive watching you have experienced nothing. You've gained nothing. You've learned nothing.
If you stop watching, you'll spend a week or so panicing that you're no longer in sync with the world, but then you'll stop caring and you will be happier than ever before.

And that concludes my blog post on St Nics. If my readers could swing by and try their food, their spa or their drinks, I'd love that. I did genuinely enjoy their food and if I can help earn them some money maybe they won't mind so much that I spent a good chunk of my day sat on their roof.

It's an underestimated historical chunk of Shrewsbury, and worth a visit. Probably not in the same capacity that I visited it.

This blog post is only a small one, but I'll follow it up with some underground tunnels as soon as possible. So thanks for reading. If you like the blog, share it on the social media, and also follow me on Twitter and Instagram. And also, to contribute to the adventure fund, which will in time get me a go-pro so that we can take these antics to Youtube, please click the donate button to send me pennies. However, as I say every blog post, money isn't a priority. Far more important to me is that you make someone smile. Compliment a stranger. Be there for someone who has nobody. All this is important because as a species we all suffer similar problems but as individuals we suffer in isolation. Imagine how much weight could be lifted if we were just there for each other.

Thanks for reading everyone! Stay awesome, and keep reading. Next post, I'm going underground!

Travelers Cottage

(DISCLAIMER: As an overall nice human being, I do not force entry, vandalize, steal, or disclose means of entry or location if it isn't obvious. I do this to protect locations and respect them. Trespass without forced entry is a civil offence rather than a criminal one, which isn't worth acting on unless one causes damage, steals, has ill intent, etc. I simply photograph and leave everything as I find it. I do not condone breaking and entering, and I do not condone what I do. I'm a danger to myself and a terrible role model. )

Today we'll be looking at another abandoned house!
The majority of abandoned houses in the Shropshire countryside are as well travelled as the London Underground. And without anyone to tidy up after the visitors, it really shows! So upon finding myself in a house that was abandoned, but remarkably non-traveled and with minimum mess or decay, I almost felt like I was wrong about this place, and that the the owners would walk in with the shopping any second! Only the long out of date food and the kicked-down door were any indicator that someone was no longer taking care of this place. Upon discovering its existence I grabbed my colleague, Tree Surgeon, and his wife, Ms K since she's the only one who can legally drive, and we headed out to what we later called The Travelers Cottage.

Since its hidden away in the Shropshire countryside, it was a bit of a gamble as to whether it would even be accessible. If it wasn't, we'd be left with no adventure and a very angry Ms. K demanding petrol money for wasting her time. The sad truth of this hobby is that one needs to prepare for disapointment. The ROC posts are a great example. I've been out to six and been inside only four. In the past I have occasionally adventured with those hypermasculine "failure is not an option" types, and it's disastrous. It's a mindset that has no place in this sort of activity. There is a huge difference between striving for success and forcing success. Sometimes one does end up traveling for an hour or more to find that there's no non-destructive way in, and we just have to deal with it. But if you're exploring with someone who says and thinks things like "I've not traveled all the way out here for nothing. I'm getting in no matter what," then you should suggest to this person that they find a better way to spend their time before they get you arrested.
Fortunately my colleagues are sane and grounded by a moral compass. The Oswestry Rooftopper said something recently on a non-adventure that I think deserves quoting. "We've been mostly lucky for years, so what's one failed adventure compared to all that we've done?" And he's right. Since 2010  we've been seeing Shrewsbury from more angles than I thought was possible without a jetpack. I've had a lot of successful adventures, and it's my gratitude for all of them that lessens the disapointment when I do have a non-adventure. Would Travelers Cottage prove to be a non-adventure. Thankfully not, since I'm writing about it.

 The garden was overgrown, but back in the day it would have been amazing.

 I really like this odd portrait, fixed to the exterior of the house.

I'm not sure why a teapot is fixed to a tree though. I was beginning to think that the former owner of this place had some eccentric tastes in decoration.We'd probably get along.

Anyway, gaining entry to the Travelers Cottage was easy. As I mentioned, someone had kicked the door through, and as such there was smashed-glass to avoid as we slipped inside. And yet the exposure to the elements had not caused any major interior decay. This meant that the place had been broken into recently, and probably robbed of anything of major materalistic value. At least, in the way of electronics rather than the sentimental or those items of worth whose value is not acknowledged by your typical shallow materialistic robber. But check this place out. This kitchen is jaw-droppingly immaculate!

 If not for the fact that everything with an expiry date was dated 2010, I'd think this place was still being lived in. It was very, very, eerie.

 In the cupboard under the sink there was an axe.

It sure would have been creepy if this chess set was left mid-game.

 One could have made themselves a cup of tea if they wanted. But would you want to?
When does tea and sugar expire? 

Moving on to the lounge, we found a lot of unusual things. In fact the lounge was what inspired Tree Surgeon to call this place the Travelers Cottage. It seemed to us that whoever had lived here had done a lot of traveling, and collecting random objects, and indeed may even still be abroad for a number of years.
But we loved the cottage. Structurally it was fine. All it needed was a new door, and an owner.

In the corner was a church pew.But that was just the start. As well as being fully furnished, the lounge was full of bizarre ornaments that made it feel rather homely but eccentric at the same time. 

I think the bench would probably have been out in the garden once.

This antler was genuine and came from a real animal. I'm not much of a fan of the idea of hunting an animal and taking part of it as a trophy, but it sure added to the character of the place. 

There was a cuirass and an axe, but I'm not sure if they were genuine. Trying to put a date on them was hard but we've concluded that it's probaly not medieval. These kind of cuirass were worn by heavy cavalry as recently as the 19th Century. But if it was a replica then it could have all been made any time.

One of our favourite finds was this clog that had been turned into a boat and then made into a lamp.

These little bottles still had alcohol in them.

I really like this drink dispenser.

A horn. The only one in the building that didn't come from an animal.

I'm not sure what animal these horns belong to. I'm thinking buffalo but I could be wrong.

I'm loving this little makeshift shelf for pictures.

A small set of stairs led upwards, and at the top, as if to welcome us, was a taxidermied animal head. 

 I always find it so surreal that this head, that I can reach out and touch, was once attached to a living, healthy body, thinking and feeling and enjoying the world in his own way. There was once a fully functional living brain in this, and now he's an ornament.
If any of my readers want my head when I die to mount on a wall, let me know in the comments.

Two smaller heads were on either side of the window. These have dates on their bases indicating that the occupant probably purchased them, and likely all the other taxidermy, rather than being an actual hunter.

Both of them are from 1893. In a strange way this is even more surreal! These guys died over a hundred years ago!

Onto the bathroom, which was an awesome shade of blue. I'd actually love to have this bathroom.

 The toilet was a little questionable. It's lacking a seat, and it's blocked by... something?

 I'm not sure what that is, but it's still in better condition than some of the toilets in bars and clubs!

(You know, I make that joke so often it's a wonder I'm even still allowed in bars and clubs.)  

The toilet seat was on a nearby chair next to the most awesome looking shower in the world.

Moving to the first bedroom. Hope Everyone Likes Pink!

 Curiously, the pot of pink paint was on the floor by the bed. It was the same shade as the walls. It was as if this room was prepared for a guest (or two given the two beds) right before getting abandoned.

 One thing I've noticed about abandoned houses in Shropshire, such as Calcott Hall and Vanity House is that sewing machines often get stolen. I'm just picturing some urbexer somewhere sitting and laughing maniacally in a room full of sewing machines. But so far they havent nabbed these two!

I really like this boomerang because if you look really close you can see where it was carved. Tree Surgeon speculates that this is a genuine Aboriginal boomerang.

Onto the final bedroom. This one had three beds. 

 So this begs the question, if this is only a two bedroom house, why are there so many beds? Did the owner rent it out like Airbnb?

 This cat was either a cheetah, jaguar or leopard. The differences are far easier to tell when one can see the whole body, since the differences in the spots is more pronounced there. It's rather small for a big cat which does support it being a cheetah, but it lacks the stripes that cheetahs have on their face. Either way, Tree Surgeon actually pointed out to me the bullet hole that killed it. And on close inspection it seems that the head was probably mangled by the gunshot, and it's been reconstructed, so this head is actually more fake than taxidermy now, which leads to the question, why bother? Did a creature have to die for this unimpressive paperweight?

On the window were claws or teeth from some animal. I don't know what.

But that was about it for the house itself. Two bedrooms, five beds, a single bathroom, a lounge and a kitchen/hall. And a load of random ornaments. But why was it left this way? The building itself really just needs a little bit of a clean up, and a new door. It would make an amazing home. Tree Surgeon was seriously debating in his mind the best way to go about purchasing it, and moving Ms K and me in.

On our way out we stopped to admire the garden and realised that there was much more to it than we realised. Its overgrowth made it deceptive. But as we worked our way through the bushes we found this odd shrine area.

 Now I don't know enough about this sort of thing to know what kind of shrine this is, if that is indeed what it is, but it seemed really peaceful here. Scraping the mud and leaves away with our shoes revealed a tiled floor, there were little shelves presumably for candles or plants, and a main central shelf presumably also for holding something.

 In the middle of the floor was a small pond, although it was barely recognisable as one now.

And finally there was this lonely little bench.

And that's concludes Travelers Cottage.
This place is full of mystery. It's immaculatre, and has the same eeriness and sadness that all abandoned houses have. Because this isn't just exploring architecture and history. This is exploring the remnants of someones life! Abandoned houses were homes once, and they carry with them the last surviving remnants of someones story.

The sad thing is, since coming here I've noticed other peoples photos on Instagram of the exact same house, clearly after our visit. Things aren't the same. Stuff has already started going missing. It is now known to the wider British Urbex Community, and as such, these photos of the Travelers Cottage depict it in a way that it isn't anymore. But on the bright side, should nobody come and fix it up, it will be engulfed in nature a few years from now and be really photogenic.
I'm sure any photos taken before my arrival probably show it with even more cool stuff. Who knows how awesome it was when the first visitor kindly kicked the door down.

Anyway thanks for reading. If you liked the blog, share it on the social media, and as always I would really appreciate any donations to the blog fund via the donate button up at the top. But far more important to me is that you head out and put a smile on someones face today. Compliment a stranger. Turn a day around. Real wealth is measured in happiness, not money. Nobody will be lying on their death bed thinking "At least I made all that money." Happiness is what every human wants. Happiness is what every human has the power to give. If you go out and compliment someone random, you might get a hug too, and everyone likes hugs.
If you want to get tweeted whenever I update my blog, feel free to follow my Twitter. And also if you follow my Instagram you'll see the occasional photos that don't make it into the blog, and also photos for blog posts I havent got around to writing yet.

And if you want some additional fun, I have a little challenge for you. Nothing too huge. Just a game.
I was recently chatting to the mother of a certain Youtuber over on Facebook. Now I won't name names because you will either know what I'm talking about or you won't, and if you don't then thats cool. But basically we spoke briefly on how the mainstream media will sometimes take a story and twist it to suit their own agenda, which tends to involve a lot of fear mongering. However in this case they ended up stirring an entire shit storm on someone who is clearly quite troubled already. I think if someone is in a fragile frame of mind or if their mental health isn't at its peak, for whatever reason, unleashing this drama on them is just cruel and evil. But it also goes to show that when you look for clues to support a conspiracy theory, you will see them. It's like when people look for subliminal messages by playing songs backwards and hear them because they want to hear them. If you watch a youtube video, looking for a secret "Help me" to indicate someone is actually kidnapped, then you will find it.
So as a bit of fun, to make light of a bizarre situation, if any of you want to go over my entire blog and find clues that I have in fact been kidnaped by terrorists, and report your conspiracy theories back to me, I would LOVE to see what you come up with. Let your imaginations run wild. Read between lines that aren't there. Put logic through a blender and give it to me.

Thank you for reading. Stay awesome.