The Blue House

 

This tiny little house is situated on top of a great big hill somewhere in Wales, far from anywhere, and it is fucking adorable and well worth the trek. Ordinarily it takes a lot to get me excited about a house. I think they've just got a bit of a bad name from the breed of urbexer that prioritises pristine barely-abandoned and fully furnished so-called time capsules from the far-flung era of 2021, that they nip into while the owners funeral is just about wrapping up. I'm not about that. I mean, what's the point? Now this is a good house, purely because it's ancient, it's gorgeous, there's nothing at all modern in it, and when I dug into the history I discovered that the same family had occupied it for over a century. If walls could talk, these ones would tell you about the occupants from cradle to the grave, over multiple generations.

Alas, walls can't talk. But I can, at great length, whether you want me to or not. So let's slip inside this gorgeous little ruin!

 

 Given the age of the place, I'm absolutely blown away by what's left behind, and the condition it's in. There's no vandalism here. Granted, there's too little for this to be considered fully-furnished, but there is enough to give us a real vibe of stepping back in time. The decay is entirely natural. It really does seem like the owners packed up one day, left a few bits behind, and then never came back.

 

Initially I was a bit stumped. The 1841 census listed the occupants as the "Peters family." Living here was 62-year-old Peter Peters, with his slightly younger wife Margaret, and their adult children William, 31, and Dorothy, 21. 

 

And I thought at first that the Peters must have lived here prior to the Pierce family, because all my other evidence was pointing towards them occupying this house for four generations. 

But nobody in the Peters family had any birth records, so I was scratching my head for a bit until I realised that the ages of Peter Peters, his wife Margaret, their son William and their daughter Dorothy perfectly match the birth records of Peter Pierce, his wife Margaret, their son William and their daughter Dorothy. I'm an idiot. How did I miss that for so long?

Evidently whoever scrawled the 1841 census made a booboo and wrote "Peter" twice instead of "Pierce."

 

 Next to these books is a record sleeve for Jascha Heifetz, a famous violinist who was popular in the 1920s and 1930s.

 

Peter Pierce was born in 1779, and he married Margaret in January 1798. In August 1798 their first daughter Jane was born in Margaret's family home, which is curious. Peter was just nineteen and Margaret only eighteen. And if we look at the dates, it would seem that these were teenage lovers, and when Margaret got pregnant, Peter immediately married her in order to make the situation "proper" in the eyes of society. But Margaret did still live with her parents, and seemingly unable to provide, Peter also moved in. Margaret was also the eldest of seven children, which meant with her new hubbie and newborn, the harmony of that household must have been significantly strained.

This inconvenience didn't stop the newlyweds from bumping uglies though, and soon little John entered the world in 1805, at which point Peter and Margaret decided to move out of her parents house and get their own place. It wasn't this place, but we're getting there.

At their new home, they had a multitude of additional semen demons. Peter Jr joined the family in 1807, followed by William in 1807, and Richard in 1813. But for whatever reason, that house wasn't sufficient, and it may have had something to do with Jane. Poor Jane died in 1817, at the age of nineteen. I don't know how, because my data lacks context, but at that point the family came here. And then they had more babies!

So Thomas was born in this house in 1816, followed by Dorothy in 1819, George in 1822, Isaac in 1824 and Benjamin in 1826.

That's a lot of children for such a tiny living space, but this was unfortunately very common back in the day, because the child life expectancy was so low. Families would have hordes of children crammed into tiny houses, hardly helping the quality of life, and perhaps adding to the squalor that caused so much sickness and child death. It was a vicious circle, incredibly common, and this place was no exception. Little Benjamin didn't make it through his first year on the planet, and little Isaac would die here at the age of three. Richard also died here in 1831 at the age of 18. So of their ten children, four are dead. It's pretty sad.

 

But this is really another reason why I'm developing a soft spot for houses like this. The family history, along with the frankly measly size of the house, all shines a light on the abysmal quality of life for the working class in Georgian and Victorian Britain. And I think we need that, because history only really focuses on the rich and the prominent. The average folk often get consigned to the background as faceless crowd who just happened to be there.

 

Of the surviving Pierce children, John got married in 1832 and was the first to leave the nest, becoming a farm labourer elsewhere. Thomas married a few years later, and went on to become a butler at a fancy house.

 

So on the 1841 census, Peter and Margaret were still living here in their sixties with two adult children, William and Dorothy. Only Peter Jr and George are unaccounted for. Presumably they had also moved out and were doing their own thing. Dorothy would do the same in 1847 when she got married, ending up as a farmers wife and mother of her own little brood.

 

 

This room is by far my favourite. It is from this room that the house gets its rather simplistic nickname, the "blue house." But we're not here to mock urbex nicknames today. Nobody born East of the border can pronounce this places actual name anyway. But the blue room here is absolutely gorgeous. There's enough left behind to give it character, but enough decay to make it delightfully eerie.

 

The painting of a girl praying is one of those images intended to look wholesome but kinda looks creepy.
 

On the 1851 census, Peter is listed as a 72-year-old farmer of 37 acres, with two people employed as his labourers. His wife is still by his side but William and Dorothy have fucked off. Instead, Peter's tenth child, George, has returned to the house to work on the family farm, and with him is a fourteen-year-old servant girl named Anne, which indicates that old Peter and Margaret are now in declining health and need a little extra help. 

And indeed, Peter would pass away in this house that very same year. 

Inheriting the farm, George married a woman named Margaret in 1853. The name repetition might get awkward, and to make matters worse, they had a daughter in 1856 who they named Dorothy. 

Peters widow, the original Margaret, would then pass away in 1859. It's actually quite a happy love story. These two teenage lovers spent their entire lives together and made a life for themselves right here, and bore numerous children. It's a story wracked with sadness as they lost child after child. but they always had each other, almost right to the end. 

And this house, which once had their entire family crammed into it, now became the home of George and his own little family. 

 

Photos of this family are still dotted around, albeit unlabeled. I don't know who these people are, but given the age of the images, I do wonder if the man on the wall is old Peter Pierce himself. 

The boy on the table is anyone's guess.

 

 

Now the big cheese of the farm, George fathered more children, albeit never as many as his parents. Mary was born in 1859, followed by Margaret in 1863, and then Peter in 1867, presumably named after George's deceased father, although George's brother Peter had also passed away the year before, so he could have been named after him. But they were now a family of six, and this is reflected on the 1871 census, along with a 26-year-old farm servant named Thomas who is said to be George's nephew.

 

But alas, the family may not have reached the same colossal size as the generation that preceded it, but it did have its fair share of bad luck when little Dorothy died in 1879 at the age of 22.

And here we have numerous photos of the family, but no context or information on who anyone is. It's lovely but simultaneously infuriating.

 

 Over on the side here is a birthday card which reads "From Mam, To Mrs Pierce with the best of wishes."

And right away I'm breathing a sigh of relief. This means my research is verified! The problem that I have with Wales is that place names often get repeated, because they all translate to simple descriptive phrases like "Top of the hill," or "bridge over the river," and this is because centuries ago Wales was predominantly rural with scattered communities and no motorised transport. Old Mr Evans, living at "Village by the bridge" in the 1300s, isn't worried that there's another "Village by the bridge" some 20km away. That's completely irrelevant information to him. It doesn't factor into his world. So my point is, when researching Welsh places, it's entirely possible that I end up researching the wrong damn place because of name repetition. I'm very much relieved to be proven right.

But let's examine this card. It's to "Mrs Pierce," from her mother. Now why would a mother address her own daughter as "Mrs Pierce?" 

I think maybe the emphasis is put on her being Mrs Pierce because she's recently married into the family, and this is the mother expressing that she's happy for her newly wed daughter by addressing her by her new name.

 

There are wedding photos nearby, but it's impossible to know who this could be.

On the 1881 census, George is listed as a farmer of 45 acres, meaning he has obtained additional land. His daughter Margaret, only seventeen, has got a job as a housekeeper so she's elsewhere. She would get married and move to Runcorn eventually. But the remaining children, Mary and Peter, are still here. Mary would pass away in 1882 at the age of 23.

 

Little Peter would marry a woman named Catherine in 1899, a woman who is curiously listed as the farms housekeeper, which is interesting. Evidently Peter fell for his own employee, which would have been rather scandalous back then. In 1900 they would have a daughter named Mary, presumably named after Peters departed sister, and then a son in 1901, who they named George after the elderly head of the household. 

In 1901 there was also a 14-year-old boy named David working here as a servant.

 

Here we have a postcard from 1947, which is considerably later down the timeline but still old enough to be awesome.
 

 And this little note from the Jones family is informing them of a change of address in 1964!

 

 There's a book here, but the writing on the front is faded.

 

 It's an old finance book, with entries dated 1944 and 1946. This is incredible! But the names at the top are the Davies family, which threw me off a bit. The first name scrawled at the top is "John William Davies," and I'm pretty sure this is Catherine's nephew. Catherine's sister Jane married into the Davies family, and she had a son called John. I'm not sure what his middle name was, but given that "Williams" was Catherine and Jane's maiden name, it does make sense that they'd carry it forward. We see plenty of name repetition in these old families, and it's not uncommon for women to keep their maiden names in continuity seeing as they'd lose them. John Davies lived from 1911 to 1996, so he'd totally be an adult and farming in the 1940s. The dates add up.

I'm not entirely sure why his paperwork is here, in his aunties house, but at least there is a family connection.

 

 The dates in the book continue into the 1950s.

 

 This room is similarly cute, but doesn't quite have the same personal touch as the other room.

 

So Peter and Catherine had a son named Joseph in 1903, and another son named Hugh in 1906. Peter's father George would also pass away in 1906, meaning it was Peter and Catherine spearheading the farm into the 20th Century. But interestingly, despite living elsewhere, Peters uncle Thomas, the one who became a butler, is said to have died in this house too in 1906, at the age of ninety. Perhaps he returned when his health was failing. 

The 1911 census is particularly quaint because it's in Welsh, listing Peters occupation as "ffarmwr," for Farmer, and having "Ysgol" next to little Mary's name to indicate that she's in school. Also mentioned are her younger brothers, George, Joseph and Hugh, and also a fifteen-year-old domestic named Maggie. 

And then in 1915 they had one more child, Edward, which is quite impressive given that Peter was now 48 and Catherine was 39.  

Peter would die in this house in 1932, at which point Catherine became head of the household.

 

Additional documents from the 1930s are similarly in Welsh, and also in cursive, which makes it doubly difficult to decipher, but I gave it a go. In 1939 the head of the household is Catherine, whose occupation is "ffermwraif," meaning "Farm Woman." Two of her children, Mary and George, have gone on to have their own families, but Joseph, Hugh and Edward are still here. Josephs occupation is "gertiwr," meaning "carter" and Hugh is listed as "Gwarthegydd" meaning Cattle Man. So they've each got their little role on the farm. Edwards entry is interesting. It's hard to tell with Welsh cursive, because it looks like a spider with diarrhea  crawled across the page, but it looks like it says "Llafwrwr armaethydd," meaning "Army labourer." It looks like little Edwards off to fight the Nazis.

 Here's an old milk label.

 

 

And there's an old photo showing a young woman. She may well have drank from the same mug that I'm using to prop up the photo.

Moving on outside...

 

 There are a few old-buildings that were used by the farm, and they're all fairly ruinous now, but marvelously photogenic in their decay.

 

 So with the elderly widowed Catherine being the head of the household, it kinda makes sense that her side of the family would get involved as she got older, explaining why her nephews name is among the paperwork. She passed away in 1965, and her son Hugh is seemingly the last child to live here, passing away in 1971 at the age of 64. His siblings, all with families of their own, would pass away elsewhere and this house was left empty.

 The most intact storage building is this little workshop full of tools.

 

 This is an old sharpening wheel.

 

 It does kinda have serial killer vibes when there's big pointy things hanging from the ceiling.  Honestly it's amazing that none of this has been stolen. One day Hugh Pierce hung this up for the last time, and it's been there since 1971.

 

 It's so cool to think that this house has seen four generations of the same family. Numerous people have grown up here. Many people have died here, in the same house that their parents and grandparents were born and died, and it all started with a teenage romance in 1798. And little did they know, their story would get repeated two centuries and-a-bit later on technology they'd never even fathom. And they were just ordinary farmers. It could happen to any of us, just because there are weirdos out there with autism and bonkers hobbies. The world is mad.

 

And that's all I've got! I absolutely love this place. While the years of cringe that I've been subjected to through various urbex groups have left me unenthusiastic about houses, there's no denying that this one is a pretty cool one. It ticks my house boxes. It's ancient, it's decayed entirely naturally, it's got a story, and it's got some cool things left behind to enjoy. Why go to some pristine barely-abandoned thing and make a big fuss about the fact that it still has power, when you could go to a place like this and experience genuine history? 

I love this place. I want to find more like this.

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Chapel

I am a fan of abandoned chapels. Chapels of all sizes are dotted around the Welsh countryside, in varying states of neglect and dereliction. Most of them served tiny hamlets back in the days before transportation was prevalent, and the only thing these people had was what was in their immediate area. For the local farmers and their families, attending service on a Sunday was also their means of socialising and catching up with their neighbours. And then as the world progressed, many of the rural chapels became somewhat redundant.

 

Obviously the big, beefier chapels with the fancy ceilings and balcony seats are a lot more photogenic, but there's something cute and humble about these tiny cottage-sized ones. These people didn't need something grand to worship in. Any building with seats would do the job.

The chapel shows up on maps from the 1880s, and according to one source it was constructed in 1837. Originally it was standing on the grounds of a large estate that was owned by the Wynne family, a big Welsh family that boasts many a baron and rich toff.

The mansion on this estate was first occupied by Reverend Richard Wynne, who married Gaynor, the daughter of a man named John Wynne. So straight away we have "inbreeding" ticked off our list of rich people stereotypes. 

But we're not here for Princess Wynncest and her great big house that could fit my entire flat in its kitchen. We're here for this chapel, and it sure is cute!

 

It's actually quite lovely. There's no vandalism whatsoever. It's a little too rural for that sort of thing. I think the majority of vandalism is done on impulse by people with half a brain, who get a freedom overdose when they realise that they're in a place with no cameras and no humans. Ironically I find that it's the most well behaved members of society who succumb to this. If someone is morally competent because the law tells them to be, then they're more likely to go a bit nuts when the law can't get them, whereas if someone understands that legality and morality don't always walk hand-in-hand, and can ascertain right from wrong because of their own sense of empathy and emotional maturity, they probably won't go somewhere like this and piss all over the pews.

Having said that, I absolutely love this decay! The ceiling is collapsing and the walls probably weren't always that pleasant shade of green. It will be interesting to see this place ten years from now, if humans were to have no input.

 

Here's the ceiling details. 

 

 

And a cute little window. 

 

 

Here's a hymn book, entirely in Welsh. 

 

 

There's an Easter leaflet here from 2012! That feels shockingly recent. How on Earth did this chapel stay active for that long? It's a fair trek from any houses, and there's nowhere to park. It must have had a very devoted community.

 

So going back to the Wynne family, the chapel does hold some significance for Richard and Gaynors Great-Great Grandson, Edward. His own father passed away less than a month before he was born, and his mother remarried a chap named Mr Brodrick. Mr Brodrick would also die in 1915, leaving poor Anne Brodrick twice widowed.

 

In 1916 Edward would also die from injuries in the first world war, being laid to rest in France at the tender age of 22. At this point, Anne seemingly opened up much of the estate to the public. The heir to the house was her daughter, Margaret, who turned the remaining land into a horse farm, bringing in a number of mountain ponies, which she ran until her death in 1961.

 Edward is mentioned on this big memorial slab at the back of the chapel which was apparently unveiled in 1923, and witnessed by a Colonel Williams-Wynne, presumably a cousin. 

But also mentioned is a William Jones, who died in the battle of Mametz Wood in 1918. That raised my eyebrow because the infamous bloodbath battle of Mametz Wood happened in 1916. I did worry for a moment hoping William Jones martyrdom was suffering a typo, but no, that wasn't the case. There was a lesser known battle of Mametz, when the Germans took it back from the British in 1918.

There is a newspaper article from 1923 which outlines how much of an absolute saint Anne Brodrick was. She actually helped the family of William Jones go to France to visit his grave- something they were ill-funded to do by themselves. The same article talks of the locals and says "They are all indebted to Mrs Brodrick for giving the land upon which that chapel had been built."

So it looks like Anne Brodrick actually gave the chapel away to its trustees. Some say that she gave away the land so that the chapel could be built on it, but the chapel appears on old maps so that can't be true. The news article admittedly does phrase things vaguely, but "had been built" is past tense. 

But I think this might be part of the problem. There is allegedly no deed for this property. It was given away a century ago and nobody in the present day has any responsibility, nor any authority to do anything. Admittedly property ownership isn't my area of expertise. I'm not sure how any of this works.

 

Whatever the ins and outs of who owns what, this chapel did actually make it into the latter half of the 20th Century, although it did nearly close in 1965 when it changed ministers. I guess its longevity and loyalty of the flock was in fact a fondness for him more so than a fondness for God. There's the saying- "people leave bad managers, not bad jobs," and I guess the same can be said for rural communities and their pastors. 

But that's not to say the new guy was bad, but people are change resistant. 

Apparently things did pick up when new people moved to the area, and the chapel did get a bit livelier. 

And then a storm brought a tree down on the roof, resulting in the poor wreck we have today. 

I guess "Act of God" is a good a reason as any to close a chapel.

On the pulpit are some bibles, in Welsh and English.

There's also these positively ancient books.

Dated February 1881. This is so awesome!

But what future is there for the chapel? Admittedly it is sad. I don't really get along with God. Or rather, I dislike the attitude of many Christians and flat out sneer at the ones who take the bible too literally. I'm a historian, albeit a renegade one. I know that with very rudimentary research we can see the transition to monotheism from the ancient texts that the bible is based on. So really, there is no historic truth in the bible. It's adaptations and metaphors at best. 

Having said that, if someone takes comfort from belief in a loving deity, and wants a quiet place to pray, then that harms nobody and the loss of a chapel like this is kinda sad.

The saving grace is that the organ and communion plates were donated to other chapels in order to save them, but for the chapel itself, the situation is a little more complicated. I've heard that people would like to see it sold, but no deed actually exists. The estate apparently still has a claim on the land, which is sometimes contested by the public, who have documentation that proves the estate bequeathed it. But it is alleged that nobody actually owns it, so nothing can really be done. But nobody wants to see it destroyed either.

I don't know what the answer is. Like I said, property ownership is not my area of expertise.

So that's it. It will definitely be interesting to check back in a decade to see how nature takes it all back, assuming humans don't smash it up,

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