The Burnt Bunker

(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 in a place, I never take any items and I never cause any damage. 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've blogged about quite a lot of these little monitoring bunkers now and for me, at least, they never get old. However, they probably would if I focused entirely on hunting them down instead of just swinging by whenever I happened to be in the area. It's such a gamble. They might be padlocked, they might be welded shut, or they might not even be there at all. It's on a comparative rare occasion that they're just left to rot, wide open for anyone to access, but truthfully all these outcomes are annoying. If I owned land that the government had put a bunker in decades ago and then abandoned, I'd fix it up and put it on Airbnb, along with a sinister advert "For all the Thora Birches out there, come kill the Keira Knightleys of your choice in my wonderful hole. £20 a night, roughly ten miles from civilisation. All authentic cold war bunk beds."

So basically, for those who haven't read my other bunker blogs, they look like this, although the access hatch is usually not broken.

In the 1960s, with tensions rising between various countries, and nobody knowing quite what to do about the sudden presence of nuclear weapons in the hands of our potential enemies, the governments of the world collectively went "AAAAAAHHHH!!!!" and began looking at things to do to either lessen the threat or at the very least make it look like they had a plan.
In the UK, nuclear monitoring bunkers were established all over the countryside, roughly ten miles apart. Each one was a tiny subterranean room, about fifteen feet underground, where the staff would monitor for nuclear blasts, and communicate with other monitoring posts. These were also designed to keep the staff safe and provide accomodation in the event of a nuclear strike, and in some of these bunkers, I've found instruction booklets on how to build cooking equipment out of rubble in a post-apocalypse wasteland and how to build traps to catch wild animals, (although other humans will do if you're against animal cruelty.)
In short, in the event of the apocalypse, call me.

This particular bunker was established in 1964 and was one of the first to close down, being left in 1968. Many others, particularly the ones that are in good condition, closed in 1990. I didn't have high hopes for this place, given that it had been sitting open in a field, without any maintenance, since 1964. The only way in and out was a fifteen foot ladder into a concrete room with no phone signal to call for help, should it break. Only a fool would climb down there.

And as established, my survival instinct is covered in dust and cobwebs. This is why I sometimes end up sat on the roof of a college, looking at my hand and thinking "What just happened, and why does my body think bleeding is an appropriate response?"

So here we are at the bottom of the ladder. The beauty of these bunkers is that even though they were built identical, history has given them each a different story, so I never know exactly what to expect beyond the original layout.
At the bottom of the ladder is a pump used to remove flood water, although in this case it's deteriorated quite rapidly.

It looks like someone has, at some point, set fire to the bunker. However its furniture is mostly still intact. It still has bunk beds, and a cupboard.

The door has been removed and propped up against the wall for some reason.

There's a suspiciously modern looking Carling can sitting on the desk, indicative that visitors have been coming here since 1968, and since the fire. This doesn't surprise me though. I'm far, far, from the only person who knows about these places.

There appears to be a tree branch in the toilet room. The toilets of these bunkers tend to be rather undignified, being a bucket with a seat. Presumably when full, someone had to then lug it up the ladder, and dispose of it, before bringing it back down. But look at this tiny bunker, with just two beds, and imagine what life would be like if you were stationed here in the event of a nuclear strike. There's two of you, down here and unable to leave for an undetermined length of time, with this bucket lurking in the corner, filled with your digested food rations. You better hope you actually like the person you're working with!

But it's still nicer than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.

Fortunately there are air vents, which are designed to open and shut. However with the air filled with nuclear fallout, maybe one is better off inhaling the stale air of the bunker, excrement and all.

We found, quite oddly, that the bunker had become home to a colony of snails. There were literally hundreds of them dotted around, adhering to walls, under the desk, or just chilling on the floor. I guess the bunker is a perfect breeding ground.

That's all I got today. It's just a small blog, however in case you missed yesterdays post on the Shropshire blog, I'll link that here. To conclude, these nuclear monitoring bunkers are sad decaying relics of a more tense era, where nuclear war seemed inevitable. It's a shame that so many are rotting away in fields when they could be preserved as historic testaments, and in my opinion the real crime is that one must trespass in order to appreciate them.
My next blog will be a lunatic asylum, and then it will be a quirky derelict underground hair salon. Such diverse topics! In the meantime, Like my Facebook, Follow my Instagram, Subscribe to my Youtube and Follow my Twitter.

Thanks for reading!

Dildo House

(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 in a place, I never take any items and I never cause any damage. 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.)

So todays blog post, in case the title doesn't make it obvious, is NSFW.
Come to think of it, most of them are, but this one doubly so. It's probably not in your best interests to read any further if you're:

• Easily offended
• Sexually Conservative
• Triggered by the sight of blood

But let's be honest, it's the internet in 2018! Someone will complain anyway!
So let's just jump right into it!

I'm not feeling enthusiastic about this one. I showered for about two hours after getting home, but that adds nothing much to the narrative except now you get to imagine me naked which, lets be honest, improves any story.

Now I want to stress the importance of treating abandoned houses with respect. They're usually left the way they are when the occupant dies and as such, they're essentially massive memorials to someones entire life, and if it's still full of personal belongings that haven't been removed, one can ascertain that the person was likely very alone. There's a lot of sadness behind these places.

This long abandoned, derelict house was found at the end of what seems to be some kind of rural digger graveyard. They were all around us, being slowly reclaimed by nature.

As we were traipsing through brambles, we found construction vehicles, machinery, and the remains of caravans, randomly dotted around. It seemed that there was a lot more hidden in the overgrowth, but it was pretty thick, and we were fairly limited. However there was a path made by previous urban explorers which we stuck to, since it seemed to be the obvious means of finding the house. And sure enough, from the top of this particular Decepticon digger, one can just about see it!

See? The chimneys over yonder!

Here's a random computer monitor.

There were numerous outbuildings, where nature hadn't had quite as much of a grasp on the available clutter.

And in this wardrobe is a lovely chart about weeds! Various signs, not documented because they give the address away, reveal that there was once a riding school here, but very little can be found on it online.

Check this out! Someone built a den! Now all the local kids can... practice job interviews?
It seems like a lot of effort for a surprisingly dull outcome, especially given that it's right next to something way cooler...

Isn't this great? All we need now is to find a cement mixer, bulldozer, crane, and dump truck, and we can build Devastator! Minus robot scrotum, because that movie was shit.
This is perhaps the only construction vehicle that doesn't need freeing from a jungle, but even so, one wonders how long it has sat here and if it's even operational.

Here's a walking aid, highly indicative that the person who lived here was pretty old.

Finally, it was time to set foot in the actual house, which was wide open to the elements and reeking of damp. Straight away we were met with this ominous message.

"Danger of Death. Property secured by silent alarms linked to neighbour."

Hmm... what neighbour can afford silent alarms and set up death traps, but not figure out how to lock a door? Either this house is filled with dead bodies of other urban explorers who fell into the traps, or the neighbours, who judging by the surrounding area are squirrels, dispose of the bodies.

Do squirrels eat flesh? This is a horror movie plot unraveling right here!

But really, the prospect of traps is exciting. One time a psychic lady read my palm and told me that I would die doing something stupid. I thought she was just guessing that based on the rooftopping-induced scar on my hand, but maybe she was actually right... 

There's a rather ominous fridge / freezer here.

There's food still it, with the latest expiry date being a rather disturbing 25 January 1995, which gives us a rough idea of when the house was last lived in, and also explains why the riding school has no internet presence. If this occupant was old by 1995, then their business would have pre-dated the internet.

There's a horse riding helmet!

The house was incredibly cluttered, but what seemed odd was the presence of a second living area, separated from the actual house, but connected, with its own bedroom, lounge and kitchen, essentially making this two homes in one house.

Well... thats the most hideous bed I have ever seen. Seriously, I'd rather sleep in the fridge and cuddle the expired meat.

This issue of Farmers Weekly is dated 1993.

There's table football here!

Quite intriguingly, at the back of this "second" home is a hole smashed into the wall, through which one comes out into this bleak coridor, with a single window, and a small door at the end.

The floor is in pretty bad shape, but if one was to make it across, they would emerge in a bedroom in the first house, behind a chest of drawers.

So obviously the original wall was smashed through, but it's still weird that this bedroom would have a cupboard with a long coridor, complete with window in it, which could conceivably connect to a different persons dwelling. It reminds me a little bit of that guy who faked his own death so that his wife could pay off the mortgage with his life insurance, and the man then moved in next door, and connected their houses with a door behind their wardrobes.

Here we have a wheelchair, which is an odd find in an upstairs bedroom... But with this and the walking aid, clearly the person had mobility issues. Although I can't imagine something more infuriating than needing to go to the shops but realising that someone had left their wheelchair upstairs. No wonder the food is out of date.

It's strange that the bathroom is carpeted.

The shower looks delightfully retro.

I rather love this monstrous lamp.

Here on the upstairs landing is a "new" mattress. Of course I use the term "New" pretty loosely. It's still in its wrapping but it's probably been like that since 1995. More concerning is the presence of the titular phalus, adhering nicely to the banister.

There's another one here too!

Although as entertaining as this discovery is, I'm actually surprised that I've not come across this sort of thing more often.

I mean I did find some questionable things in Utopia, but that's to be expected. I'm more surprised I've never come across these in any other abandoned residential location.

Downstairs was where things got really interesting...

This room downstairs had a bed, the likes of which one sees in care homes. There were cabinets here containing the personal belongings, videos, music, and a big TV facing the bed. Out of the entire building, this bit felt the most lived in, and we found ourselves met with the realisation that towards the end of the occupants life, they were bedridden, and recieving care at home. Perhaps the other room with the ugly bed in was lived in by the carers. However if this person was being cared for then it's slightly worrying that following his death, all his stuff was just left here.

I know what you're thinking. Neglect from the care industry? That'll shock absolutely nobody.

There's some medicine left on the bed frame, although I've blacked out the clients name.

Here's a booklet of escort contact details in Manchester, dated 1995.

Some of the adverts are pretty amusing, although they are out of date by a couple of decades, so the numbers are all likely to be wrong. Next to some of them were little handwritten notes by the guy who lived here. As someone who can't enjoy sex without an emotional connection, the entire concept of actually paying a stranger for it is something I struggle to relate to. However I'm happy that the guy who lived here, bedridden as he was, was still able to enjoy things like this.

I mean check it out, these are incontinence pads. I can't imagine anything more undignifying than these. The carers would have given him periodic pad changes, which would have depended largely on his own mobility. Typically, two carers would have stood either side of his bed, and rolled him onto his side to remove the soiled pad, wipe his arse, place a clean pad down beneath where his arse was going to be, and then roll him onto his other side, so that they could get the straps around him before rolling him back onto his back, with his arse central on the pad, and then pulled the front of it up between his leg, maybe washed his dick if they were good carers, and then just strapped the front of it up, and left him in a nice clean pad praying that he didn't need changing again any time soon. It's surely a humiliating experience for anyone, but here he was, hiring escorts. For all we know, the dildos might have been for him to use on them, which is kinda sweet. It's like he just wanted the company. Or maybe they used them on him? Let's not judge, thats hardly the most unconventional thing in 2018. I read about some guys who like to freeze garden worms, insert them up their urethra, and then as their body heat thaws out the worm, they masturbate and get off on the sensation of the worm wiggling out.
But I digress, horrifically so. Nothing should go up the urethra, but evidently sometimes things do, and as such a man having his own dildo is really not much of a leap.

Anyway, being stuck in bed must have been a lonely existence. It's plain from the rest of the house, with the TV here facing the bed, that he likely never actually used the rest of his home towards the end.

Most disturbingly was this bag of blood, although it could actually be really, really old urine, although that's not much better. This technically counts as clinical waste, and should have been disposed of. It's perhaps the most disturbing thing I've ever found in a derelict building, regardless of whether its old pee or human bean juice. It's both fascinating and horrific, and certainly a testimony to the neglectful nature of the care industry. Someone should have got rid of this years ago.

Lastly, there was a cellar...

The most interesting thing about this cellar is the stairway, as an obvious brick one exists, but someone at some point put wooden stairs over them for some reason.

The cellar is fairly non-descript. I guess when one is confined to one room, the rest of the house becomes a storage space, and the cellar becomes redundant.

That's all I got.

To conclude- unlike many abandoned houses, one can actually see the story here. The man once ran a horse riding school, and towards the end of his life was bedridden and receiving care, confined to one room of his home. He died around 1995 and the house was left as it was, although someone scrawled that threatening message in the doorway, which would indicate that either someone did care at some point, albeit not enough to dispose of a bag of blood, or urban explorers have an odd sense of humour. I'm leaning more towards the latter possibility, because if someone really cared, they'd get rid of that bag of blood, and lock the door.

Either way, it's sad. All abandoned houses are sad, really, because if nobody was there to clean up after someone died, then really they truly were alone, on a level that few of us will experience.

This guy, at least, had his escorts.

Next blog post I'm exploring a couple of abandoned houses on the other blog, Shrewsbury From Where You Are Not, and then I'm back here for a nuclear bunker. They'll be quite small blog posts, but I promise big things are coming. In the meantime, Follow my Instagram, Like my Facebook page, Subscribe to my Youtube and follow my Twitter. And share this blog post, if you want.

Thanks for reading!