More views from Oswestry

I'm slightly torn. This blog should ideally feature photographs primarily from Shrewsbury. It is after all the blogs title "Shrewsbury from where you are not." But I have explored rooftops in Oswestry too, and I want to show them off. Would they be relevant in a Shrewsbury blog? Probably not. Would they be better suited for another blog, perhaps titled "Oswestry from where you are not?" No, there isn't nearly enough to warrant an entire blog. In fact I could probably squeeze all that remain into one blog entry.

And that's exactly what I'll do! Here's Oswestry, spewed forth to remind the people of the world that it does actually exist.

Note- The group I explore with have a strict policy of leaving everything as it was, not vandalizing or stealing, and not exploring or violating any residential properties, nor do we force entry, merely utilize existing openings. Any entry on the blog that does detail a means of access does so under the assumption that the means of access can no longer be reached. Never would we reveal an existing opening over the internet, for fear of negative consequences against the property.

The above photos are taken from a bank in Oswestry. I forget which one, but I'm thinking it was quite possibly Abbey or Natwest. Banks are, of all the rooftops in the towns I've explored, surprisingly easy to get to. Nothing quite as worrying as Halifax has ever popped up again though.

 The above two photographs are from the rooftop of the Fox Inn, and that means we had a unique view of the mural in the garden, and the band nights that occasionally play there, at least partially. Naturally, nobody saw us because humans rarely look up.

And best of all, Oswestry offers a maze of abandoned stairways and ladders behind the scenes were nobody can see.

The above ladder leads nowhere. The window it used to open up onto is blocked, but the ladder was caked in anti-climb paint nonetheless, just to stop anyone climbing up it for some reason.

Of course it raised the question, why were ladders caked in anti-climb paint? I understand when they put it on drainpipes and lamp posts. But ladders? Generally these ladders are there for a reason, be it rooftop maintenance or fire evacuation. Numerous ladders we encountered in Oswestry were covered in the stuff.  I'm not sure which is more baffling- that what are presumably fire exits are coated in paint, or that ladders nobody would even want to climb are. I mean you can tell by the photograph we were able to find other means to the rooftop opposite the top of the ladder. We didn't even need to touch it at all.

Lastly, and none of us had a decent means of taking photos for this, we did find an abandoned attic of Peacocks open to the public. Or at least open to whoever had the courage to climb that high.

My friends hung back at the door while I snuck inside to snap whatever was there to see with my phone. And as luck would have it, they ended up calling me back, having found a sign that warned of asbestos. The likelihood is this building was stripped of asbestos long ago and the sign remained, but there is a chance I inhaled a load of it, which led to ridiculous amounts of research into asbestos, and how much is required to kill someone.
It turns out that the amount one needs to inhale to be at risk varies depending on whether employers are trying to convince people to work with asbestos or to avoid it. Convenient!

Oswestry isn't a bad place to explore. In fact it's quite fun. An epic work out. No, it's not got the heights and views of Shrewsbury, but it's definitely more challenging.

The view from Theatre Severn

As previously mentioned in another blog, our posse of explorers did drift apart naturally, as the four of us each had their own individual lives and these inevitably took each of us to different parts of the world.
One of us remained in Oswestry for a time, and so when scaffolding popped up on a teeny chunk of the theatre in Shrewsbury, I got in touch. If I recall, it was a Thursday, and I asked my friend to come up at the weekend. I was working Friday so the weekend was the best time for me. However my friend insisted that he was busy and if we were to do it, it had to be that Thursday night.
I reluctantly agreed and it turned out to be the best idea ever, because the scaffolding came down on Friday. There was no extensive work being done to the theatre- they were just sticking some writing to the wall.

The theatre opened in 2009, and it a pretty ugly extension to Shrewsbury, but the view was pretty awesome. The scaffolding didn't take us all the way to the top, but it did take us high enough for us to climb our own way, albeit the more trickier route, as the easy path was directly in view from one of Shrewsbury's busiest roads and lit up wonderfully to draw attention to its horrific architecture. We had to crawl along a narrow ledge behind the theatre to advance further, and this was pretty scary in the dark with dyspraxia, but ultimately we did advance, and we did get right to the top.

Naturally we were cautious. The roof was plastic, and our footsteps echoed. Anyone inside would have known we were there, so of course we almost soiled ourselves when we climbed the last ladder and saw a figure right in front of us. Luckily, it was just an owl statue.

Note- The group I explore with have a strict policy of leaving everything as it was, not vandalizing or stealing, and not exploring or violating any residential properties, nor do we force entry, merely utilize existing openings. Any entry on the blog that does detail a means of access does so under the assumption that the means of access can no longer be reached. Never would we reveal an existing opening over the internet, for fear of negative consequences against the property.

Anyway, here's the epic view!

Click a picture to see it big.

Oh and here's that owl.

Best of all, due to the fact we obtained the view partially via scaffolding, our view was unique. No other explorer can get here without going through the theatre itself. We later found out that the camera on the roof is actually a live internet feed, so it's fun to think we may have had an audience, and if the opportunity to get there ever arises again, I will let you know so that you can watch us from your home as we ungracefully climb the theatre.

Views from Oswestry

Oswestry, a teeny town north-ish of Shrewsbury. While it takes only thirty minutes to drive to Oswestry, the over-priced bus routes to anywhere, and the closure of the train station means that to anyone from Oswestry who doesn't drive, Oswestry is The Universe. I used to live there, and now granted the insight of my escapades in Shrewsbury, I took a break from Shrewsbury, and went to see the world of opportunity that I had missed out on when I lived in Oswestry. Oswestry indeed had many rooftop access points and we would find them.

And where better to start than the tallest accessible part- Santander. Please note- we don't vandalize, steal, force entry or harm property, or disclose means of access.

See? Oswestry's a lovely town. Of course the above picture was taken on Christmas day, so because this building is a bank, albeit slightly incompetent as far as banks go, usually it's only climbable at night.

One thing we did find was that, unlike Shrewsbury, Oswestry's rooftops were a lot more connected, and often the view we had was actually nowhere near the means of access, and the route in question required a lot more skill and imagination.

The roof of this clothes shop is a great example:

You get your pretty standard view, but the way of getting to the means of access is nowhere near the actual building, and in addition, we found that there was imaginative room for expansion, onto the sloped rooftop of HSBC.

Now, we'd gotten down whole streets by straddling pointed rooftops before, but nothing this big- HSBC has lethal drops on either side, and is pretty high up, and the period of time we'd be shuffling along precariously was quite lengthy. But it was worth it. Sure, we could have fallen to our deaths, but it was a lot of fun.

Ultimately we found ourselves on one of my favourite rooftops, Halifax, and a view of Bailey Street, which is fairly similar to Pride Hill in Shrewsbury.

Worryingly, Halifax had a ladder that led from the rooftop down to a portion behind the building. And what did we find? A stairway that went beneath the bank! It was an interesting find, but worrying because the door at the bottom of the stairs was wide open. And what did we find?

Bank details! Hundreds of them!

I mean, part of me is ecstatic that my adventures have taken me into something as unique a find, but at the same time, had we not been benevolent explorers, this could be a huge can of worms opened. These files contained details on many, many people, and it seemed to have all been untouched for years. Rooms like this shouldn't just be open to the public, even if said public has to scramble over rooftops to get to it. Luckily, our last visit to Halifax revealed the door was now locked, but how long had it been open for?

More shots of the cellar-

Anyway, that's it for our first batch of Oswestry photos. I would return to my old hometown for more pictures at a later date, but seeing as this blog has "Shrewsbury" in the title, I should probably make it more focused on that town instead.

More Shrewsbury photos next blog.

Random chunks of Shrewsbury

There are, in urban exploring and rooftopping, those bits and bobs that do not warrant a blog page all to their own. When one is strolling along observing his or her hometown, having already had their imagination blown wide open simply by learning to see ladders and stairs in any vertical surface that isn't 100% smooth, every drainpipe, railing, TV aerial, and wall represents an opportunity. In cases like this, often we have returned at night, and found maybe a small amount of explorability or a good view, photographed it and then left. There isn't much there to fill a blog entry on one single area, but there are enough of these to do it together, so here are a few of the more intriguing and photogenic nooks and crannies of Shrewsbury.

  Note- The group I explore with have a strict policy of leaving everything as it was, not vandalizing or stealing, and not exploring or violating any residential properties, nor do we force entry, merely utilize existing openings. Any entry on the blog that does detail a means of access does so under the assumption that the means of access can no longer be reached. Never would we reveal an existing opening over the internet, for fear of negative consequences against the property.

THE DRAYTON OFFICES

The entire building above the Drayton restaurant was empty, and an open window on the first floor was wide open at all hours just begging for a group of explorers to wander on inside. This was early in our adventures, and we had yet to realize that one can never have too many photos.
But we still got a few, and I had watched the Drayton intently ever since. However, the window was locked and they have now been converted into flats. Ideally this would have had its own page to itself if we had more pictures, and of better quality. It remains a wasted opportunity, and a mistake we'll never make again.

An awful picture of the alleyway.

View of the Market Hall from the upstairs

Upstairs was the grim discovery of a dead pigeon. The attic was spacious, and accessible via a foldable trapdoor staircase. The window had been smashed and boarded up. While the lower part of the building had a huge pigeon infestation due to all the open windows, the pigeon in the attic had no means of escape and so starved to death. Along with all the pigeon poop from the rest of the building, this was one of the messier explorations.

But next to this building was an ancient storehouse of some kind, full of dumpsters on the ground floor but should one push past them to the stairs, or (and this was easier) pull themselves up the opening in the floor that went all the way up to the top of the building, one had a vast empty space that had been long since forgotten.

CLAREMONT CHURCH

The church was seen under reconstruction in the KFC rooftop photos and today is a very ugly building. During the reconstruction period we were able to explore it, during the Argos/Abandoned Gym escapades.
This was via an open window but as always I need to emphasize, exploring construction sites is silly. Cables are exposed, wires may not be properly covered, nobody knows you're in there and the stability of walls and floors cannot be guaranteed. There is a reason construction workers wear protective gear. Anyone who goes exploring a construction site at night should be prepared to take responsibility for anything that happens to them.

CINEWORLD

There were a lot of security measures to keep people off the roof of Cineworld, but luckily none of them had taken me into consideration when they were put there. It was an awesome spot to chill out.

A VIEW OF THE LIBRARY

This spot took some serious struggling, given my dyspraxia. For people who aren't from Shrewsbury this huge building is a library, although it was once a school. It has a statue of Charles Darwin out front because he was born in Shrewsbury, and even though he hated it here and left in adulthood never to return, the town likes to milk the tourist-attracting teat of Charlie Dee.

There's another view of Castle Street from this spot.

SHREWSBURY GIRLS SCHOOL

Ugh... Someone who knew of our adventures told us of an entire rooftop complex accessible from the roof of the girls school. As such we got all the way up there one night and found out this story was false. But we still got a picture.

SHREWSBURY SWIMMING POOL

Allegedly once, explorers got into the swimming pool at night via an open window but they got arrested. Now, the window is shut and the rooftop is accessible easily. There are plans to rip this building down and building a hotel so this view is quite unique.

But while these finds were small, bigger treasures still lay around the corner... Shrewsbury was not done giving me its secrets.