Today I'm talking about this wonderful place. I checked it out prior to lockdown so please, lower your pitchforks and put away your pillory and Judas cradles.
This miniature railway quietly rots away in the middle of a dilapidated garden centre. It doesn't sound like much. In fact, a run down, overgrown garden centre sounds a lot less exciting than some of the places I've been to like an abandoned Nazi base. This reminds me of the time I followed up a lunatic asylum with a salon... I do a bit of everything. And in my defence, that salon was awesome!
But what drew me to this garden centre was the titular miniature railway. In fact one could argue that it's the star attraction. Once upon a time, this was bursting with life, and thanks to the miracle of the internet, I've managed to hunt down a few shots of it in better days.
(Photo not mine, obviously)
(Photo not mine)
How times have changed. Now the station looks out across a wasteland.
Sadly the buildings themselves were locked, and I'm not one for forcing the issue, even if it is all sat here unloved. There are pictures of this little signal box prior to the place closing down, and also prior to the bench being put there. In its place was a sign labeling this as Rhyl station.
(Photo not mine)
I guess they took the sign down when they realised that labeling a place Rhyl was probably bad for tourism.
The tracks split off some distance away from the station. Now, a lot of them have been removed, but it's some remain, and it's possible to see where the rest once were. One line heads off to the engine shed, while another would loop around the garden centre. I decided to come back to the tracks later... I had dilapidated garden centre buildings to check out.
As well as the award-winning miniature railway, the garden centre also boasted a cafe, a nursery and tropical fish. However in 2011 it was purchased by a family-run business. Allegedly they had another garden centre somewhere else and were looking to expand. But in spite of their newly purchased award winning railway, and in spite of splashing out £150,000 to upgrade and modernise what was here, they soon found that it wasn't financially viable.
There wasn't much left of the stock, although that's to be expected. What could be sold was likely moved to the companys other location. That's not to say that there's nothing of interest though. Look, here's Santa!
I think this Santa might have sung a song once. He seems to be holding a mic. If I get no presents because the tubby git has gone on tour with the Sleigh Belles, I'll be pissed!
There are a few signs stored here, advertising ice cream, sales and train rides.
There was a toilet block nearby. It was labeled staff only, but I'm fairly certain nobody cares.
It's still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs. Not that any are accessible at the moment, what with the virus. But speaking of Covid-19, check it out! Actual toilet paper! Quick, draw a circle on the ground, toss the toilet paper into the middle and munch popcorn while the panic-buyers fight for it!
Some of the "buildings" around the garden centre are lasting against the elements worse than others.
This sign advertises sheds and greenhouses, and in contrast to the rest of this place, they're surprisingly pristine. Most of them are also locked, which absolutely adds to their preservation, although I doubt it will be long before some moron comes around smashing everything.
These are some pretty quirky designs.
Judging by the sign wishing Harry a happy birthday, I assume they held childrens events here. Little Harry has his birthday immortalised in this time capsule amongst a wasteland.
Here's the old icecream fridge.
Returning to the tracks, it was time to stop by the old engine shed.
Hmm... It's pretty creepy. The engine shed looks like the kind of place where, while we're all self isolating with Covid-19, Prince Andrew will be self isolating with Jenny 13.
Adding to the creepy vibe is Santas sinister grin next to a "No entry" sign.
So this shed once housed the miniature train.
There's an old turntable outside.
The shed itself is padlocked. Maybe the train is still in there!
Here's the sign for the aquatics area, where one could get a lovely water feature for their garden.
The plastic hanging off the metal frames of these old structures flapped in the wind and added beautifully to the ominous vibe of the place. Who would have thought a garden centre could be so creepy? Perhaps it's the fact that so much effort went into making it whimsical.
But as if things weren't creepy enough, I was about to stumble across the fat mans grotto...
I've seen pictures and videos of this place that show the reindeer and various other Christmas decor in different layout, so it is subject to designs of other visitors who come here. Strangely nobody seems to have propped the reindeer into erotic poses yet, but it will almost certainly happen at some point. Nevertheless, there's something about stumbling across a place like this that really caught me off guard. Why is Christmas so eerie?
Beyond those doors on the right was where the train would drop off the kids so that they could meet Santa and tell him what they wanted. Now, beyond those doors is a perfect view into the garden of the house next door, and similarly would have offered them a view of me had I gone out there.
Santas post box is here, but unfortunately it was empty. It would be eerie if childrens letters to Santa were still in here.
The reindeer are actually soft to touch, not hard plastic.
This one's taking a shit.
There was a door that led to a pitch black storage area full of even more Christmas stuff just casually heaped in a pile.
And I had the shock of my life turning on the torch and seeing this figure looming in the room. Luckily it wasn't a serial killer, but the next scariest thing, Santa himself. I guess that chair is where the hired Santa would sit at Christmas time and greet all the parents and their crotchfruit.
I assume this building complimented the miniature railway in some way, given that there's a painting of a train on the far wall.
There's also a painting of a bunch of happy people with presents. So maybe this was some kind of railway-themed gift shop?
There was some kind of store room at the back. There's a noticeboard at the back. The one thing still pinned to it is a little floor plan.
The papers curling so it was impossible to get a shot of it without my hand in there, pinning it in place.
There's this little addition to the railway theme too, but while it certainly shares the same colour scheme and design, it's not actually linked to the miniature railway. It's a separate attraction allowing kids to drive a tram for £1. Not just any tram, but as the name "Toby Halt" suggests, it's the tram from Thomas the Tank Engine. And here's a photo of what it once looked like!
(Photo not mine)
There was also a little Thomas ride, next to a generic red train that they totally should have at least tried to paint to look like James.
Apparently pushing Toby makes him scream.
Unlike Thomas and Toby, Generic Would-be James is still here, gathering dust. It probably still works!
But you see, it might be a garden centre but its quirky railway theme makes it memorable, and there's no doubt that numerous families have memories and stories from this place. This is why it's important to document it all. This is why the internet is an important tool. Yes, it allows us to put on this fake persona that portrays us as better than we are, and yes a lot of people are too stupid to see that opportunity and just use it to be cunts, but beyond that the internet is the means of immortalising information. All of this is going to outlast us. We call the Dark Ages such because of the lack of recorded information during the period, and I think in the future historians are going to think similarly of the pre-internet age because of the inefficiency in the means of record keeping.
This garden centre is going to be flattened for houses, and when that happens the only indicators that it even existed or what it was like will be online.
So the place closed in 2016 due to financial difficulties, and 25 people lost their jobs. Apparently two people remained working here, basically using the land as a storage facility for any stock that would later be sold at their other garden centre. They also said at the time of closing that they'd be maintaining the railway for special events, but evidently this didn't last long.
A bunch of houses have been proposed for the site. Initially developers proposed a whopping 70 houses, much to the annoyance of the locals, but there's since been a silver lining to this proposition, and that is that after a meeting at the local village hall, developers took feedback on board and have since made it clear that they plan on building only 22 houses, while the rest of the space will be transformed into some kind of wildlife park, allowing plants, birds and insects, and probably non-human mammals like mice, rabbits and Telford residents, a place to thrive.
The developers then sent christmas cards to the locals to butter them up.
It actually sounds quite nice.
There's a no-entry sign right in front of the garden centres greenhouses, but there's very little left to see in them. I'll throw a few photos here for the sake of documentation, but it's really not that exciting.
That's all I've got. In this case it's a bit of a shame that we'll be losing the railway portion. It could easily be preserved, leaving developers with enough land for houses.
But I guess that's not up to me. I do have a couple more locations in this area so maybe I'll check back someday.
In the meantime I'll be doing my next couple of blogs on my local page, and they'll both be abandoned houses, albeit not at all normal. Follow my Instagram, Like my Facebook and follow my Twitter.
Thanks for reading!
