Bunker Seventeen

(Disclaimer: Joking aside, I fully understand the risks/dangers involved in these adventures and do so in the full knowledge of what could happen. I don't encourage or condone and I accept no responsibility for anyone else following in my footsteps. I never break into a place, I never take any items and I never cause any damage, as such no criminal offences have been committed in the making of this blog. I will not disclose a location, or means of entry. I leave the building as I find it and only enter to take photographs for my own pleasure and to document the building.)

Today I'm looking at another derelict nuclear monitoring bunker, and as the title of this post indicates, I've been to quite a few now! The truth is, if you live in the UK, chances are there's a nuclear monitoring bunker within ten miles of you. As explained in the last bunker blog, predictably titled Bunker Sixteen, I've taken to numbering them as I find them, but not traveling out to them specifcally. Don't get me wrong, they're great if they're open. But so often they're padlocked, or even demolished, so traveling out to them is a bit of a gamble. I tend to swing by if I happen to be near one, but I'm not really committed to hunting them down.

Nuclear Monitoring Bunkers were set up across the UK during the Cold War, which was perhaps one of the scariest points in humanitys history. Even scarier than the Spice Girls reunion.
The Cold War is named such because there was no actual fighting involved, but there was a lot of tension between countries following the creation of nuclear bombs, in particular the US and Russia.

Nobody really knew what to do, but nevertheless, the powers-that-be were trying to be proactive without being aggressive and provoking full-on nuclear war. The best anyone could do was take precautions and make sure our defences were at least upgraded. These nuclear monitoring bunkers were a part of that. Over a thousand subterranean monitoring posts were installed across the British countryside, each one identical, each equipped to monitor for nuclear blasts, communicate with other posts, and in the event of a nuclear strike, provide temporary accomodation for the staff stationed there.
While the government did promise to restore the land to how they found it once the bunkers were no longer needed, most of them were just left to slowly decay. 

As I said, getting out to these bunkers is always a gamble. They're usually out in the countryside, and they could be locked, welded shut, or flat out demolished. If they're unlocked and accessible, it's very rare that they'll be in good condition. This one has no hatch, meaning it's been further exposed to the elements, so I wasn't expecting anything too pristine. However it's still crazy to think that in this random field is a derelict nuclear bunker that was once active and playing a role in our countries defence.

They're pretty much only noticeable by the surface features- the air vent and the tube, which the staff would have pushed the fixed survey meter up to count the radioactive particles in the air. Unless one knows what to look for, people could walk past on a daily basis and never actually know what they're looking at.
To me the fact that it's hidden in plain sight is mindblowing.

Also present near this particular bunker is something that I've never seen before, called an Orlit. There are two types of these things, named Orlit A and Orlit B. The only difference between the two was that the Orlit B is on stilts.

The Orlits were aircraft monitoring posts, designed to monitor enemy aircraft should they come by.

My publicist tells me that I'm wrong about the Orlits though- we had no enemies during the Cold War, he says. So what aircraft are they supposed to be looking out for, then? Ryanair?? Perhaps he thinks that during an era where everyone was afraid of nukes that Orlits were built to watch out for angry racist pensioners.
I dunno, maybe he's confusing the Cold War with a splashing fight in a freezing outdoor swimming pool.
As always I decided to trust Wikipedia instead.

No, we didn't fight any enemies during the Cold War, but the whole premise was built on the heavily held belief that the enemies were out there and the apocalypse could be around the corner. An Orlit was a precautionary measure that, after World War 2, it would be stupid not to do.
But while the Orlits were proposed in 1947, they weren't actually built until around 1951. Given how exposed it is to the elements, this one is surprisingly sturdy.

The Orlits did predate the bunkers. Initially it seems that the priority was aircraft monitoring, but as the Cold War escalated, the priorities moved underground.

This is the view from the roof into the Orlit. The Orlit was divided into two segments, a store room and the observation room. Of the two, only the store room has an actual roof, while the observation room had a removable cover. On the central pillar was a Plotting Chart, used to monitor the course of the aircraft in question. And thanks to the wonders of the internet, I have here a photo of a manned Orlit back in its glory days.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

That should give you some idea. But today the Orlit and the nearby bunker are little more than derelict field ornaments. Its proud history has been forgotten and now it's a climbing frame, from which I can view the nearby bunker...

The bunker was constructed in 1959 and decomissioned in 1968. Older photos of this exist, from around 2000 and taken from the same spot, which curiously show the boulder on the other side of the access shaft, next to the detached hatch which was lying on the grass. It seems improbable that in eighteen years the boulder would move due to natural reasons. I suspect that at one point it may have been used to pin the hatch down or block the shaft, but has since been moved. The hatch itself is gone.

 To my relief, the ladder supported my weight. Since 1968 it's had no maintenance and been exposed to the elements, so I was aware that the ladder might not be stable and could collapse as I climbed it. So far this has never happened to me, but the ladder in the bunker in Church Stretton was barely hanging on, and sagged as I climbed, so I'm always wary of the possibility. If the ladder were to break, there would be no way out, and I'd have no phone signal. On the plus side, if a bomb were to drop, I might be alright. Silver linings!

Luckily it wasn't flooded.

This pump would have been used to remove water from the bunker. It's not in good shape.

 The bunker itself is atmospheric, decayed enough but retaining enough to make it interesting. The workers would have sat at this desk, and the wall would have been covered in maps and communications equipment.
The main objective would be to record the details of a nuclear blast, such as the force, the proximity, and whatnot, and then report it. Now allegedly the huge flaw in the plan was that the technology was so primitive it was said to not even be able to record radiation in Chernobyl, but that could just be hearsay. The people who were stationed here are often proud of their work, and let's be honest, it's a noble profession. But more than that, imagine being stationed here in the event of a nuclear strike. It would mean living here, with at least one extra person, in remarkably cramped conditions. There's not a lot of people who could do it. Think of your most annoying work colleague, and now imagine living with them in here. Could you do it? Or would you be adding that colleague to the food rations?

The bunks are still here, as is the hatch door! But by far the most intriguing aspect of this bunker is the graffiti.

 The Clash, Thin Lizzy, Baccara... These aren't the names of teenagers scribbled on a wall, these are bands. Some of them are repeated. Why has someone written a load of bands on the inside of a nuclear bunker? Okay, fair enough, Abba is there, and nothing makes me feel like the world is ending quite like Abba.
I'm serious, there's something genuinely ominous about Abbas music. Every time I hear it, I cant help but feel like shits about to go down. I'd listen to Abba if I was trying to hype myself up for a fight or something.

 This thing at the back is the air vent. It's designed to close so that in the event of a nuclear strike, contaminated air wont come down.

Thats about it for this bunker. It's far from the best, but it's not the worst. With the hatch still present, albeit detached, it could actually be fixed up. Personally I think that if one of these was fixed up it would make a cosy little home-from-home, assuming you've never seen The Hole. I have, and I'm glad Thora Birch isn't my friend, that's for sure. Although having said that I'd rather be friends with Thora Birch than watch another Transformers movie, but then I'd rather have syphilis than watch another Transformers movie. But I digress!

If I owned land that had one of these on it, I wouldn't let it go to waste. I find situations like this really saddening, because someone owns the land that this bunker is on. Do something with it. Fix it up and put it on Airbnb or something. Heck, someone on Airbnb was renting out a caravan stuck in a tree for £10 a night! Anything goes on Airbnb! To me, it's baffling that these Cold War relics are just left lying around, derelict. They're museums in their own right, testimonies to an era that for some wasn't that long ago.

My next blog post will be one of Shropshires lost pubs, but in the mean time, if you missed it, I started another blog of non-Shropshire locations, which you can find here. Also share this blog wherever you want, Like my Facebook Page, follow my Instagram, Subscribe to my Youtube and follow my Twitter.

Thanks for reading!

Rooftops of Shrewsbury- The roof of Maplin

(Disclaimer: Joking aside, I fully understand the risks/dangers involved in these adventures and do so in the full knowledge of what could happen. I don't encourage or condone and I accept no responsibility for anyone else following in my footsteps. I never break into a place, I never take any items and I never cause any damage, as such no criminal offences have been committed in the making of this blog. I will not disclose a location, or means of entry. I leave the building as I find it and only enter to take photographs for my own pleasure and to document the building.)

It was recently world mental health day, and everyone was posting about their experiences on social media, which is great! Show me someone who isn't a little messed up and I'll show you a good liar. But every time a suicide gets reported, everyones up in arms saying "If only someone was there for them." Well there's still a few billion humans to be there for. Honestly, talking about this sort of thing is a step in the right direction. Bravo, humanity.

And for once it was a social media bandwagon that I was tempted to jump on, but I just had an unusual case of writers block, uncommon in me. I can find my words fluidly when writing about a dilapidated shed or something, but I really struggle with untangling the really deep stuff, and conveying it in words, which is hypocritical seeing as I just congratulated everyone for their own transparency but fuck it. I would be wrong to say that my unconventional adventures didn't develop as a coping mechanism to the shitstorm in my brain. I took to the rooftops eight years ago, as a form of escapism, purely due to my inability to achieve a sense of belonging.

Don't get me wrong- I'm not anti-human. I think most of you are great. Tree Surgeon and his wife are great. Isla and Jess are great. My publicist, Old Man Russ, is great. And I probably think that you're great too.  But where does one start in explaining that I find humans unrelatable? Instead of moping, I make jokes about my own reclusive nature, and the fact that aside from being a total recluse, the only other sign of my abusive childhood is a phobia of dairy products. Laughter is natures anaesthetic after all, and humour is my way of coping with the fact that in almost every human interaction my inner monologue is screaming.

But it must be said, so that the narrative is not misunderstood, I'm very happy in life. I love being me. I'm having the time of my life being me. And if I couldn't do what I do, I'd probably end up doing a Robin Williams. That's right, I'd paint myself blue, hide in a bottle, and help poor people get laid.

So today I'm returning for the first time in years to the rooftop of Maplin, and like my blog about Shrewsbury Library, I get to use an exterior shot of the building I'm climbing on thats been taken from another roof that I've been on. I love it when that happens.

It's not Maplin anymore, but that's what happens when  just about all of your stock can be found on the internet for a fraction of the price. The former staff have my condolences. However it's the view that has any actual value to me. Naturally, I went up during the night, purely in the interests of stealth.
Check it out-

As far as rooftopping goes, Maplin gets severely overlooked, mainly because it's just a singular roof with nowhere to move onto, whereas other rooftops like Pride Hill allow for rooftop access down entire streets. There is a reason for my sudden renewed interest in the Maplin roof though, and that is that expansion further down the street is temporarily possible.

There's a good view of the Market Hall clocktower from here, too. When I was up there I distinctly remember looking down at Maplin, and also what was once Argos on the other side, thinking "Those other rooftops seem so small from up here." It truly put a lot of things into perspective. One gets a sense of accomplishment for traversing the side of the building and arriving on its roof, in a whole new landscape completely unseen to the general public, but still existing in the same world. It becomes apparent through this sport just how much of our world we're actually seeing. And then to climb the tower and look down once again on the rooftop landscape that I'm generally more accustomed to from an even higher vantage point, it's quite surreal.

The market hall gets called ugly a lot, due to it being a very prominent example of 1960s Brutalist architecture in a town fond of its history. Other buildings in Shrewsbury get the same negative reaction, but the market tower seems to get it the most, because it's the most noticable.
For the sake of comparison, I'll include an old photo of the building that used to stand where it does now.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

In my opinion, Shrewsburys old market tower is bloody gorgeous, especially compared to the one that was built in its place, and I lament that I wasn't around to ever see it in person. However, those who were around do point out in defence of its demolition that by the time they tore it down, it was already falling apart all by itself. Nevertheless, it's a loss.

But while we can complain about the 1960s brutalist architecture all we want, I've provided a solution to the problem in this blog multiple times before- Open up the flat rooftops to the public so that the ugly architecture can provide a vantage point for tourists and locals to appreciate the good architecture that surrounds it. It would totally work! Buildings like the Market Hall and Princess House are practically begging for that kind of treatment!

 Maplin exists on a street called Shoplatch, a name that derives from "Shutts Place," in reference to the Shutt family, who used to live on it centuries ago in the pub called The Hole In The Wall. Interestingly, the Shutts were originally known as the Schitts, until they changed the pronounciation and spelling of their unfortunate surname. So if you want to get really pedantic, Shoplatch means "Shit Place." The ghost that allegedly haunts the Hole in the Wall is also allegedly that of the long-deceased Sarah Schitt.
One wonders what her unfinished business might be...

Recently, circumstances have allowed me to get from the roof of Maplin, right down to the larger, white building at the end of Shoplatch. This big white building is considerably taller than Maplin, and has a rather remarkable history that is overlooked today. It was originally a theatre, constructed in 1834 on the site of an earlier theatre that dates back to 1791. And there are plenty of older photos that show it as such!

As you can probably guess from the clues in the photo, namely a fire engine parked outside and a ladder reaching up to a big smoky window, a fire broke out in the 1940s. There's another photo too, which depicts the fire from a little further down Shoplatch, where the smoke is far more obvious.

Needless to say, all the black & white photos from the 1940s are not mine.

Following the fire, the theatre never reopened, but instead had extensive renovations to become shops and offices, which it remains as to this day. So unlike the Bingo Hall, there's sadly no chance of finding remains of the theatre, and projection equipment, since it was all removed or outright destroyed in the 1940s.

However the view from the top is pretty spectacular.

 Over in the distance are the three churches, with the flat one on the end being another that I've had the good fortune to climb, St Julians. 

And of course, St Chads church looms over the trees.

Like I said, when one climbs a building, there's a sense of accomplishment. That sense of accomplishment is increased when I realise that I can't climb a building without pointing out all the other places that I have climbed. In regards to Shrewsbury, I've done some great things as an adventurer. In addition to the places visible from the rooftops covered today, I've climbed every major landmark, including the Abbey and the library. I've explored places like Radbrook College, Parveen Balti, and that brothel near Wakeman. I've discovered a remarkable supply of adventure, which the casual urban explorer might not suspect a small town like Shrewsbury as having. However, recently my circles have widened, and I am sorry to say that the majority of my recent adventures have taken place mainly in the surrounding areas, Wales, Cheshire, Staffordshire and Herefordshire. And while I've blogged about places before that aren't in Shropshire, like Camelot Theme Park, Long Marston Airfield, the House from Tots TV and Utopia the Swingers Club, I don't think I see the logic in posting a series of adventures in a blog whose title indicates Shrewsbury and the surrounding area.

This isn't bad news. I'm happy to say that I'm going to set up a third blog, where I will post my adventures that are further afield. And I'll be blogging there a lot in the future. I do have a few more Shropshire blogs coming up, but they won't be as frequent. Some might say, why not post all locations, including Shropshire ones, onto the new blog? But you see in the past, I've noticed that my Shropshire-related blogs reach a completely different audience to the people who read the blogs about derelict theme parks and whatnot. For me this is a community blog, supported by the people of Shropshire because they relate to it, whereas the new one will be a travel blog. So if you want to stay in the loop, then it's probably best that I do something self-gratifying and arrogant, like plug my social media! You'll still get regular blog updates if you like my Facebook page, follow my Instagram, and my Twitter, and I might someday post something on my Youtube eventually.
But I have big plans, and of course if anything comes up in the Shropshire area then it will be posted here at Shrewsbury From Where You Are Not.

My next blog post will be on the other blog, and it is a derelict museum, complete with leftover mannequins.

And then I'll be back here with one of Shropshires forgotten nuclear bunkers.
This will be awesome.

Thanks for reading!

The Lodge

(Disclaimer: Joking aside, I fully understand the risks/dangers involved in these adventures and do so in the full knowledge of what could happen. I don't encourage or condone and I accept no responsibility for anyone else following in my footsteps. I never break into a place, I never take any items and I never cause any damage, as such no criminal offences have been committed in the making of this blog. I will not disclose a location, or means of entry. I leave the building as I find it and only enter to take photographs for my own pleasure and to document the building.)

I actually found out about this house via a Youtuber, although I very rarely watch urban exploring on Youtube. This one got my attention though, because it's in Shropshire and the youtuber really blueballed me by being completely unable to get in.

They were stood around the house for ages talking about how the place was completely sealed, and I was sat there at home watching and thinking "The upstairs window is open. They're building up to that discovery, surely." But no, after about five minutes of mooching that felt like thirty, they concluded that it was inaccessible, got back in the car, and drove off, leaving me screaming at my computer "THE UPSTAIRS WINDOW IS OPEN, YOU BLIND BERK!" And as the scene transitioned to their next explore, I was left deeply unsatisfied.

 So I had no choice but to go there myself, with my friend and rooftopper from Telford, Niall.
And it was amazing!

I don't have any external shots of the house, because we went at night, but that's okay. The internal shots are far more appealing. It looks like the set of a horror movie.

This house proved easy to research, being on the property of a larger building which sold in 2017. The larger house dated back to 1859, and this smaller, derelict house, was described as a two-bedroom lodge constructed on their land in 1910, and last lived in around the 1990s.

The bathroom floor, and half the toilet, are somewhat absent.

 Quite interestingly, during World War 2, when numerous European countries suffered Nazi occupation, a lot of European governments sought refuge in the UK, and the larger hall was temporarily occupied by the exiled Czekoslovakian government. I'm not sure if they had a use for this lodge too, but I assume they had access to it, which is pretty cool. However, it's also simultaneously sad to see a building with an interesting history falling to ruin.

 There's a little Christmas Tree here.

And an old Christmas card.

It's little things like this which make me curious. At a glance, this looks like a reasonably dull ruin, but on inspection one realises that this was a home once, albeit roughly two decades ago. Most of the personal belongings are long gone but that always raises the question, if a house gets cleared out, why are certain things left behind?

 The lounge was where things got really interesting, as it was still furnished.

 By far the best discovery in the entire house was this vintage radiogram, complete with record player.

This thing is gorgeous, and totally sat here waiting for someone to give it a little TLC. Wouldn't it be awesome if this could be made fully functional again?

There was a pretty creepy vibe in this house, but in this room in particular, although I don't claim anything supernatural happened. If anything, I have only questions. Why was this all left behind?

Perhaps it's like that wise person once said- "If you die, what would happen to all your shit? Oh, you have an answer? Good for you, because these people didn't."
Except I can't keep a straight face while refering to that quote as coming from a wise person. It came from me.

The stairs were cut off about half way but replaced with a ladder, as if at some stage someone wanted to prevent access upstairs, but then someone else brought a ladder in to make it accessible once again. Oddly enough this seems to have been done post-abandonment. Urban explorers have written posts on this place as far back as 2008, back when one could still enter the house via the door, and they state that there are no stairs. So at some point someone, likely an urban explorer, brought this ladder in, prior to it being sealed up.
Or perhaps the house was sealed up, and someone else climbed up through the upstairs window, found the ladder upstairs, and lowered it down to access the lower floors.

There are a couple of birds nests up here, but like the house they are also unoccupied.

In the first bedroom is this wardrobe, standing ominously away from the wall. There's some graffiti up here, indicating a point when this house was more accessible.

An old bed.

The creepiest part of this room was a wall covered in pictures of rabbits, wearing clothes and playing musical instruments. It's the sort of thing that children are supposed to find endearing but has some kind of impossible-to-place creepy quality to it that probably only gave the children nightmares. 

The second bedroom is a little more exposed to the elements, and the floorboards are slowly rotting away.

And onto the bathroom!

It's seen better days, and the floor is pretty much impossible to traverse, with the floorboards gone and the beams rotting away. It's only a matter of time before all this comes crashing down to the floor below.

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

What does the future hold for this building? Well the main hall was sold in 2017, with the additional info that the lodge comes with it but would require complete redevelopment. As of yet this redevelopment has not happened. Sad as it seems, it may be cheaper to demolish it rather than fix it up, which is a shame. As creepy as this place is, it could become a cosy little home.

That's all for today. Next blog post I'm either doing something in cool Shrewsbury or something utterly awesome in Wales. And at some point I have a derelict nuclear bunker coming up. In the meantime, don't forget to love yourself, and if someone says to you "Why do you love yourself, you're no better than me," respond to them with "So why don't you love yourself too?" That's the key to a better world, right there.
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Thanks for reading!