Joeys House

I did have a post planned for a brilliant little chunk of Shrewsbury. but it seems to be very exposed at the moment and I'd prefer not to write about it just yet. Instead, we're taking a little excursion today.

You may remember I did a post in Oswestry on Brogyntyn Hall. According to current blog stats it's my third most popular post, and it did get me a lot of attention. One reader and friend contacted me and we discussed a completely alien-to-me opportunity to have my photographs in art galleries, and while I don't want to go into full details now(We'll have more news we progress), one thing was clear- I need more photos from Welsh places.

This might not be so difficult! All I had to do was raise a mighty army of Welshfolk and conquer Shrewsbury!!! And then all my images would be Welsh!
And that's just what I did! Except while I was communicating my diabolical scheme to the Welshfolk in the Welsh language (I'm not fluent but I know enough to incite a war), I forgot to refer to Shrewsbury by its Welsh name, "Amwythig." And because of my blunder, (and possibly because I got them all drunk because that's the easiest way to convince people to go to war for you when you're not a politician) the entire army I raised assumed I was refering to the Shrewsbury that doesn't have a Welsh name, and flew off to conquer Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.

If anyone from Shrewsbury Massachusetts is reading this, I am very, very sorry.

So I fell back on the much more simpler Plan B, which was to nip over the border into Wales and snap a few pictures there.

Now I know this website is called "Shrewsbury from where you are not" and while that is what it literally used to be, I've since made the name inaccurate by frequent trips to the rest of Shropshire, and not to mention Liverpool and Lancashire. I'm a terrible, terrible blogger.
But prior to moving to Shrewsbury in 2010 the majority of my days were spent in Oswestry. Oswestry is so close to the border, you can practically spit at Wales from Oswestry, and vice versa, and I'm sure this happened a lot throughout history. If Wales was chopped off, Oswestry would be a seaside town. So naturally having lived in Oswestry, certain parts of Wales feel like home to me too. But where in Wales was abandoned and photogenic???

Well because people just love what I do, my contact already had a house in mind. And I can't think of a better way to repay my friend for providing me with the means to fuel my addiction of  shamelessly putting my life in danger than by naming the article full of incriminating evidence after him! This is Joeys House!

 (LEGAL DISCLAIMER: As an explorer, I do not force entry, vandalize, steal, or in this case, disclose location. 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.)

 The "Cellar" was the first part I came across, as it was actually accessible from the exterior due to the sloped land that the building was standing on. The overgrown garden was littered with pieces of toilets, and there was a bath in the cellar. So it seemed to me at first that this place had already been emptied out, but having spotted a means of entry I was not about to dismiss this place.

It turns out a surprising amount was left behind. A lot of it was cluttered, but nevertheless what I had found was a typical time capsule house, like Vanity House. However I don't know the history of this place. I don't know why it's abandoned or what happened to the owners.

 I think this little kitchen/dining room area looks like it would have been quite homely. Dishes and cutlery still sat in the draining board, cans still sat on the shelves. If it wasn't for the strange collection of tools on the table there, and all the dirt and decay, it would look almost as if the owners had just nipped out.

Moving on, there were other rooms which were full of clutter, but also gave me the owners name, and numerous clues about his life.

For example, his name was Paul and according to this certificate he was a member of a radio amateur satelite organisation. This may explain all the tools and electronic equipment that cluttered the house.

Paul had a mobility scooter. This indicates he was either old, disabled, playing GTA in Wales, or had a relative who was any of those things. It also indicates that this place was abandoned due to the death of the owners, because these aren't the kind of things you leave behind.

Down by the chair legs are some boxes of Lodosorp. This is a gel that is applied to wounds and ulcers. 

There was a "lounge" area with a locked exit to the side of the house. It had clearly been forced open and suffered repeated attempts to reopen it.

It looks almost like the lounge was being used partially as a kitchen, which might have something to do with Paul or his family members or housemates having difficulty walking. 

At the back of this room was small room with nothing in it but a narrow staircase and a bed.

Wow. What happened here??? It looks like someone set it on fire! This was by far the grimmest room in the house, but purely because my imagination ran rampant with scenarios of an old disabled person being set on fire in their bed. Somehow I doubt that's the case though. But wow.

There was also a downstairs toilet.

In spite of the living arrangements made for someone with a disability, there was still a lot of stuff upstairs and it was a lot more photogenic due to its natural light sources.

At the top of the stairs was a small bathroom.

And there were three bedrooms up here, each still full of posessions.

There's a very interesting note in one bedroom, addressed to Paul, explaining why the note writer cannot go somewhere due to their ties to the local area. Was this an event? A house move? Why are there holes in places? I find this note to Paul very intriguing.

And why is their a toaster in the bedroom???

Interestingly the staircase next to the burnt out bed should be emerging right behind that fireplace. It doesn't. What a curious house. The access point from the stairs must have been blocked off, which would make their presence in that bedroom quite confusing, especially given that it added clutter to a room lived in by someone with mobility issues. The mystery adds up. Maybe my sense of direction was thrown off somehow.

I seriously didn't want to leave this place, and the intrigue hasn't worn off. I'd love to know what happened to this mysterious Paul fellow. The eerie part of time capsule houses is that one is literally stepping in to the remnants of an entire life that is likely no longer with us. One cannot walk through a time capsule house without becoming very aware of their own mortality.

And you know what? Sometimes I don't think that's a bad thing. I mean, I know it sounds morbid and when people say to me "You could die doing what you do," my response of "But I'll die eventually anyway" is usually unpopular. But hear me out.
Awareness of my own mortality has been liberating. I live each day like it's my first, and act like everything I'm experiencing is amazing and new. I'm enjoying life by doing what I want to be doing. The entire world is just one massive playground.

Ah, but playgrounds are for children, right? I don't think so. The reason people say that this eye opening, awareness of mortality is morbid, negative and bad and choose not to think about it is because to accept it means to go against their basic societal indoctrination, that our only motivation should be financial, and that anyone who just wants to have fun needs to grow up. Because to accept death as inevitable means a complete reversal of these priorities, where fun becomes the top priority, and money becomes meaningless.
I mean, we all secretly want fun. But from a very young age we're sucked into this educational system that rather than teach us the values of fun, and other useful things like ethics, morals, law, and things that will benefit our day-to-day lives, it spews us out into the world with this silly belief that our lives will only be given meaning through financial success. The human organism is not designed to sit in a classroom or office and waste our days with inactivity. We're biologically equipped to run and climb and jump, and enjoy the world we're in. Play is natural. All animals do it. Humans are the only animals that say it's childish to do so. And it's a very scary, unnatural subversion of the human animal. And I can't help but wonder if maybe this is the reason why so many people are unhappy, because on some primal level we know that we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing, but we can't see any other option because it's all we know.

Of course, I'm just talking crazy. I'm bonkers. But I'm happy so I guess I'm doing something right. If you're still reading, you can have some lovely links to various social media places where you can follow me. Instagram and Twitter, and also Facebook. Find me, add me, we'll be buddies!

If there's anywhere secret, forgotten, or abandoned that I have no desire to see, it's only because I've already seen it. Thanks for reading. Stay Awesome!

Nesscliffe ROC post

What sort of little treasures do you walk past on a daily basis without ever noticing?

There are hundreds of little doors all over the UK, inconspicuously leading down into the ground. These were established in the 1950s for the Royal Observer Corps. From 1925 onwards the role of the Royal Observer Corps was to detect enemy aircraft but as tensions rose in the Cold War, they were given the additional task of reporting nuclear blasts.
1,563 subterranean posts were set up, each consisting of an entry hatch down a narrow shaft to a room aproximately 15 feet by eight feet in size, which would contain desks, cupboards, chairs and beds. A smaller room contained a toilet facility, however it was just a barrel with a seat on it, with no actual pipes or flushing mechanism. At the opposite end of the larger chamber from the entry shaft was an air shaft.

Straight away, one can see the flaw here. While the underground room was equipped to detect nuclear blasts and determine the number and strength of nuclear explosions, the air shaft would have provided an access point for radiation in the event of a nuclear strike, negating the entire purpose of being subterranean. In addition, while the bases themselves were subterranean, their communication between all the other ROC posts depended on above-ground telegraph poles, so in the event of a bombing, they would have been flattened and the people stationed in the ROC posts would have been cut off from the world.

The majority of ROC posts were shut down in 1968. The rest were closed in 1991. Some were sold to mobile phone companies, and masts erected in their foundations.
Allegedly only a few ROC posts have a different layout to the common style, and one of the more notoriously unusual designs is underneath Windsor Castle. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the details that make its design unusual or different are probably features that enable it to serve as a more efficient bunker than the more common ROC posts. Unfortunately I can't see the one underneath Windsor Castle. But Shropshire is not lacking in its surprises.

Oswestry's ROC post is sadly filled in, while just across the border Llanrhaeadr, Llanfechain and Lake Vyrnwy ROC posts have been completely demolished, with only a few traces left hat they ever existed. The door at Cockshutt is welded shut, and the one at Much Wenlock is padlocked. The one at Whitchurch still contains beds, allegedly, but lacks a ladder.

But Nesscliffe??? I was surprised when I found it, because the door was wide open!

This meant someone had been here, or was even still here, so I approached with caution. But it soon became apparent nobody was around. Whoever had left this open was long gone.

The shaft was deep and narrow. The ladder was decades old, and hadn't received any kind of maintenance since the posts closure in 1991. Only a fool would risk climbing down it! DO I LOOK LIKE A FOOL????

 Ah... Well, now that that's been established, let's take a look!

(LEGAL DISCLAIMER: As an explorer, I do not force entry, vandalize, steal, or disclose means of entry. 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.)

The main room was lacking in its beds but the rest of the furniture was there. This may seem surprising but look at that shaft again. Why pay a team to lug the furniture up that ladder (a health and safety nightmare) when one could just leave it as it is?

Looking at the room, it's difficult to imagine this place containing a couple of beds. These seem to have been disassembled and removed, but imagine how cramped this place would have been with them in. Imagine being stationed here, and having to get out of bed just to sit at a desk and wait for nuclear blasts that never happened.

Imagine how awful it would be if you couldn't stand the person you were stationed with.

Yeah, I don't think we give the Royal Observer Corps enough credit.

I was saddened to see that this cupboard contained nothing. However, I did have to wonder how long the pink toilet paper had been down here.

Here's the air shaft. It appears to be closeable, but when I tried to shut it, it was rusted in place.

And finally we have the unflushable toilet facilities. I didn't peek inside, but I'm guessing it was a cleaner sight than the toilets in some pubs and clubs in Shrewsbury.

Imagine working here with someone you couldn't stand and a nuclear blast did go off, cutting your communication, leaving you cut off from the world in this teeny makeshift bunker/office with the person you hate, and this toilet. We're all very lucky people.

I can't believe so many ROC posts exist out there. Of course if I went out and documented more straight away I imagine this blog would get rather repetitive and dull. So next I think I'll be out in Powys exploring something new. I know the name of the blog is shockingly inaccurate, increasingly as time progresses. But I lived in Oswestry for ages, so Powys kinda feels like home too. And I have a keen interest in exploring a few Welshier places.

In the meantime, if you have any information regarding this place or any other place I've explored, do get in touch via the blog comments or via social media. I have Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Find me, add me, we'll be buddies.

Thanks for reading. Stay awesome.