Five Ways Tower

(External photo credit: Google Streetview)

 

Today I'm going up this tower!

Long time readers will know, I fucking love rooftopping. I've been doing it in Shrewsbury since 2010, and it served as the gateway drug into wider urbex. But I've always wanted to do more rooftopping in some of the cities too. I follow a load of rooftoppers on Instagram, and I'm always blown away by the views from the top of skyscrapers. The rules are different in the city, of course. In Shrewsbury I utilise drain pipes, fire exits, TV aerials, and whatever other thing can be a ladder that day. Sometimes it's just an actual ladder. Whereas in the city, rooftopping tends to be more of an internal job. Often it involves sneaking up buildings that are very much still in use, which adds an element of stealth.

 

Rooftopping combines an appreciation of the urban landscape with creative problem solving, and rewards us with a terrific view and one hell of a rush. It's a form of escapism, and an authentic adventure. Many ground-based urbexers dislike rooftopping, and will actively try to shit on it, but on closer inspection they tend to be the types who either can't climb, or lack the will to be stealthy, preferring to argue with security and police for youtube views, and as such they are incapable of getting onto a rooftop because it usually requires effort that counteracts their nature. There are those who dislike rooftopping for innocent reasons, like they simply aren't interested in the sport, in much the same way I'm not interested in football for no particular reason other than it simply doesn't appeal to me, but these people don't tend to shit on other people for doing it, because their lack of interest doesn't come from a place of insecurity.

Having said that, Five Ways Tower seems to be some sort of middle ground between rooftoppers and urbexers. To the local rooftoppers, it's old news. They've all done it. But because the building itself is derelict, it attracts the regular urbex types too.

 

 

The means of entry is in a constant state of flux. Entry points are frequently boarded up only for more to appear a few weeks later. It's been a year since we came here, so I'm not revealing any massive secrets when I say this, but in our case there was no ground floor access and we had to get creative, climbing the exterior of the carpark next to it, and then standing on a ledge and reaching for a broken window. The ledge was slathered in slippery goop, and glass shards, meaning it was difficult to stand on without sliding. To one side of me was a drop to the top of the carpark, mere feet, and to the other side of me was a plummet to my death on ground level. And have I mentioned I have dyspraxia? My physical co-ordination and balance are pretty naff. Luckily I was here with my friend Niall, who is quite patient with that sort of thing. 

Howthefuckever, we both expressed frustration at the ledge beneath the window being slathered in slippery goop, because that's how accidents happen! I mean I know we're not technically meant to be here, but someone had intentionally made the means of entry heaps more dangerous than it already was, when they could have just boarded up the window. Nobody's gonna stand on that ledge if the window wasn't wide open! If you don't want people going in, deter them, don't try to kill them!

Although a dead body lying at the bottom would deter people... 

And unfortunately being dyspraxic, I did cut my hand and get a nice big gash next to my left pinkie, which has left a scar.

I actually have loads of scars on my hands from this hobby. If I ever get my palms read, the palm reader will say "You will die doing something stupid," before they even look at my natural palm lines.

Luckily my injury occurred on the way down, so it wasn't detrimental to the adventure, but I sure did bleed! My hand was like a fountain! So if anyone came here last year and saw loads of blood splatters on the top of the carpark area, that's mine! Feel free to clone me from it. The human race, quite frankly, isn't as miffed as it could be, and more of me would do the trick.

 

 

We didn't spend much time on the interior of the tower, but you can take my word for it that it pretty much just looked exactly like the pictures I have shown. I doubt there's many people who want to look at 23 more pictures almost exactly like these. 

 

Years ago this would have been full of office workers, but in the two decades since its closure, it's been cleared out, and has been a bit of a magnet for vandals and arsonists.

And let me tell you, 23 floors is a hell of a lot of stairs. Fortunately the view would make it worthwhile.

 

 Here's floor eighteen. But we don't work for the BBC. We're aiming higher than eighteen!

 

The stairs to the roof from the top floor had actually been removed, meaning we had to scramble up vents and pipes and stuff. But here we are. Check out this view! It's phenomenal! No matter what anyone says, rooftops are amazing. The sense of escapism is difficult to describe, but it's like all the real-world problems are left on ground level. The rat race is down there, not up here. It's very peaceful.

 

 

It sure was strange being able to see into the hotel across the road. I didn't really look at what was going on, seeing as I really have no interest in spying on people. But either way, since my images are all long exposures, anyone in those rooms would need to be motionless in order for them to show up on camera in any discernible detail. 

The 23-storey building is apparently 240 feet tall, and that makes it something of a record for me. I'm sure this is all peanuts for city rooftoppers, but it's not a competition. Prior to this, the highest point I'd reached was Shrewsburys market clocktower, and according to their website, that's only 200 feet tall.

 

That market is slightly older, dating back to the 1960s, whereas this tower dates back to 1979. However its name can be traced as far back as 1565, when the area was the meeting point of five roads to different towns. Initially the offices were used by the DSS, which was the 1980s equivalent of the DWP. I'm not sure if it kept that use throughout its time as an active office block. I'm not even sure what the DWP would do with such a large building. Perhaps some of it was used as a call centre or something.

 

 

The building was vacated in 2005 for one of the most intriguing reasons I've ever come across. The people who worked here kept on becoming inexplicably ill, and this eventually led to the building getting diagnosed with "Sick Building Syndrome."

I hadn't actually heard of this before. At first glance it seems almost supernatural, like the building is cursed or something. But Sick Building Syndrome actually has scientific origins, generally occurring when the conditions of a building are detrimental to the health of those within it. The cause is usually stuff like improper airflow, poor lighting conditions, naff ventilation, shitty heating, or a combination of these things. All together it contributes to headaches, fatigue, eye and throat irritation, nausea and dizziness, but it's also a bitch to fix because it's the buildings layout that is at fault.

And really, workplace sickness must have been happening a hell of a lot for the building to be investigated. I mean, we all know how corporations work. They really don't care. You could be lying in a hospital bed dying of cancer, and they'll be on the phone saying "Does this mean you're not coming in this week?" with a tone that suggests it's super rude of you to get cancer. They will sooner punish people for having sick days before the possibility that it could be the buildings fault would ever cross their mind. So I would love to see those sickness records, and I would love to know if there were any unfair dismissals as a result of absences, and if those people made any claims once the building was diagnosed. 

I doubt I ever will, but I am curious.

 

 

What's interesting is that while we were in here, Niall did feel unusually fatigued. I was fine, but I work in healthcare so I've probably got a natural immunity to a work environment that violates my human rights. Niall was strangely fine once we were outside again. He even commented on how strange it was, before we'd even looked up what Sick Building Syndrome was.

 

 

And that's it for Five Ways Tower.

Several hotels have expressed interest but it's far too expensive to refurbish it to modern standards. Even the elevator shafts are too small for wheelchair access. Consequently it's just rotting away, with plans to demolish it on the horizon. Every rooftopper in the west midlands has probably gone up here, and have been doing so for years, so its destruction will be the end of an era. And that's really why urbex is so important. Photos of the view are instantly recognisable to anyone who has been up here, but someday they will be historic shots, and in spite of all the efforts to secure the premises, people will be glad they were taken. 

Access difficulty for the tower really depends on the day. I've recently seen posts by people who really aren't capable of making the silly hand-gashing scramble that I made, so I assume there is ground floor access again. Some people say that there's security, and that it's the main entrance that is watched, so finding a more creative way in is advised anyway, but I can't confirm. 

But that's it for today! It's a bit different to my normal posts, but as everyone knows I fucking love rooftops, and when we made this journey I was feeling pretty shit. Sitting up here and taking in the view was very calming and therapeutic. I experienced an indescribable level of serenity... right up until I gashed my hand on the way down and had to run to the shops for bandages.

We managed to squeeze a bit more rooftopping in before the night was over... but that's another story.

 

 My next blogs will be a wedding venue and then a really nice nursing home. I'll be honest, I haven't actually looked at my photos from them yet, but both buildings had really nice architecture. In the meantime, if you like the blogs and you want a chance of getting regular updates, follow me on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter which still just barely exists.

Thanks for reading!

The so-called Granddads House

Today I'm looking at an abandoned house known in urbex circles as "Granddads House," which leads me to make an additional disclaimer, beyond the usual moral code of no theft, vandalism, forced entry, etc, and that is that I don't pick the names of these places. Some unknown person in the urbex world documented this house and decided that the best possible title to sum it all up was "Granddads House," and somehow it stuck. It is, in my opinion, the second-silliest urbex code name ever. Nothing beats the Village of Bones. That was just one farm house, with no bones. But as far as stupid nicknames go, "Granddads House" is a close second.

Back in 2012 we had the likes of "Red Dress Manor," so named because it had a red dress hanging up in the wardrobe, and "Cloud House," so named because it was on top of a great big hill, literally in the clouds. Then we had "Vanity House," so named apparently because it had dressing tables. So urbex names have always ranged from making a bit of sense to being kinda weird. But seriously, is "Granddads House" the best they could do??? Every abandoned house probably belonged to a grandparent. That's why they're abandoned. The former occupants, to be blunt, are dead. They were old. And just for those who don't know, it's fairly common knowledge that if a hominid wiggly gets to another hominids eggyweg, you get little hominids that then grow up to shoot their wigglys at other eggywegs. It's been happening for millions of years. Shooting his DNA into another person and conjuring forth semen demons is not going to be the former occupants greatest achievement.

Neverthefuckingless, welcome to Granddads House.

It's cute.

 

Abandoned houses aren't really my favourite locations. If you've been reading my blogs for a while then you'll know I like to find the history of places, and residential locations simply don't have anything to work with. However abandoned houses remain the most popular urbex posts. The mystery appeals to the public, along with the sadness of someones former home being left to rot long after they've passed away. In a way these are essentially memorials to the occupants former lives, and as such it is vitally important that these places be treated with respect. To not respect them is similar to pissing on a gravestone.

 

On the other hand, abandoned houses also remain the most popular urbex spots because of all the pinchable items. Some urbexers have actually mocked me for allegedly being the only one who doesn't take souvenirs. Granddads House was once pristine, considered a time capsule, until it became well known, subsequently transforming it into the ransacked mess that it is today. That's a bit shit.

I actually spent a good fifteen minutes peeling off stickers that advertised various urbexers social media accounts. They seem to not see the moral issue in a hypothetical, but entirely possible situation where "Granddads" grandchildren get around to clearing out the place, and find it trashed and full of adverts for youtube videos of people breaking in, rummaging around, stealing, trying on the former owners clothes, etc. I guess a lot of the more self-serving urbexers lack that kind of empathy. When my brother came to live with me, he had never heard of urbex, so he looked it up to see what I was always on about, and he said to me "These people want their faces on camera more than they want to show the place that they're visiting." That pretty much sums it up.

 

The calendar is dated 1993.

 

 

The story goes that the titular "Granddad" died in 2010 at the age of 94, which makes me wonder why the urbex scene refer to it as a time capsule. I've been in abandoned places where there is literally nothing younger than the 1980s and it truly feels like stepping back in time. What ancient relics can we uncover from 2010? That's when Toy Story 3 came out. Oooooh!!! Exciting!!!

Here in the lounge, in spite of the mess, it's still possible to get an idea of what this place would have looked like back when "Granddad" and his wife lived here. It would have been quite a nice home back in the day.

 

Here's a piano with some old sheet music. According to some urbex posts, "Granddad" apparently used to perform for hospital patients. That's pretty wholesome.

 

With the sofa right next to the piano, it's kinda sweet to imagine his wife sat next to him while he played. I read somewhere that they were together for sixty years before she passed away in 2000. Sixty years is pretty damn impressive. I'm lucky if I can tolerate a human for sixty minutes!

It all seems rather generic as far as abandoned houses go, but then something on the wall caught my eye that would really change my opinion on the place.

Check it out! It's a measuring wall! I'm not sure how common these are today, but traditionally in households, parents would measure their children against the wall each year and mark their growth. I did it, back when my mother was going through her trying-to-actually-be-a-parent phase, and many other households did it, but I'm not sure where the tradition originates. This one is pretty damn vintage!

 

This is incredible! This is where two young siblings have had their growth marked by their parents during the 1950s! This is the highlight of the house as far as I'm concerned. This is time capsule stuff right here. Russ and Ros also prove that unimaginative naming was associated with this house long before it became abandoned.

 

Russ and Ros stopped having their height recorded after 1955 but then in 1964 the same handwriting has marked the height of the dog, presumably for a bit of fun. I assume Russ and Ros would have been going through puberty if they were over five feet tall in 1955, so by 1964 they likely would have moved out. 

But I am very curious. Why did they decide to measure the dogs height nearly a decade later? And what dog is five foot three inches tall? Why doesn't the dog have a name???

But regardless, this is where the sadness creeps in. Stuff like this drives home the humanity of the place. This was someones family home once. The people who lived here stop being just names on paper, and become actual living people with real stories.

 

There's a little room behind the lounge, which contains another piano. I have a theory that this might be a converted bedroom, given that the bungalow only has one bedroom but children evidently grew up here.

 

And now onto the best part of any abandoned building, the toilet.

Still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs!

And now onto the bedroom...

 

The bedroom was the most trashed room in the entire place, and also where the majority of urbex stickers were. I peeled them off for a mini bonfire later on, once we'd vacated the premises. Sorry, narcissists, but fuck your feelings.

 

 

Someone else had written their urbex channel in the dust on the mirror, so I wiped that off too.

 

There's an old commode here, indicative that towards the end of his life, "Granddad" had trouble making it to the loo in the night. Poor chap.

Photos around the house indicate that he did have some family. In fact, I learned that the name "Granddads House" actually derives from a bottle of champagne that was found here, addressed "To Granddad" for his ninetieth birthday, from someone called James, also saying "Sorry I couldn't be there to drink it with you." The bottle became the focal point of most urbex posts about Granddads House, being the one thing everyone wanted to get a shot of. So naturally someone smashed it and posted photos of its shattered remains online to brag. Congratulations of being capable of vandalising a dead mans former belongings. Great flex.

This letter is actually addressed to James, opening with "Dear James, we were glad to hear from your dad." But if this was Granddads House, and James didn't live here, why is his letter here? And if it was never sent to him, why was it folded up? It's sad to think that James may not have received the letter.

By far the oddest find in here was Granddads collection of chicken bones. Why wasn't this one named "Chicken Bone House?" That would have made sense! It's a shame Granddad never actually wished on any of these. He could have wished for people to not trash his house after he had passed.

Behind the house, we just have the out-buildings. This is a fairly modern shed.

 

There's a caravan at the back of the garden. I'm not sure why but I always find these a lot more creepy than actual buildings. They tend to have a more ominous vibe, and pretty foul odours. 

 

 

There's not much in it, but birds have made a nest on some books, which I find quite comical. 

 

And here appears to be some old schoolwork in impeccable cursive writing. The pages seem to be from a biology book, talkig about the male reproductive system. Isn't it great? It's telling all the urbexers who come here how they too can also increase their chances of someday becoming a granddad.

The other page compares the maternal instincts of birds, fish and mammals.

Lastly there's a boat in the garden, but it's full of water and its usefulness is questionable. I actually think my friend took this photo, because I don't remember snapping the boat. Credit goes to her. 

But that about sums up Granddads House.

In conclusion, Granddads House is one of those places that just makes me sad and bitter. It's awful that someone passed away and their home has just been looted and torn to shreds, and decorated with urbex stickers as people who claim to just be documenting places reveal that they are ultimately self-serving weeping cysts on the rectum of humanity. But it is my goal to document, and I'm sure there are others like me who come here for innocent reasons. As easy and tempting as it is to generalise, we must not. Abandoned houses do always make me feel a bit dirty though, especially when the urbex herd has been through. The naming process of abandoned houses, particularly with this one, will forever have me rolling my eyes, but in a world of unrelenting change there is one constant: 

Village of Bones will always be a stupider name. 

My next blog will be about rooftopping in the city, going up an actual skyscraper, so I'm dead excited about that. And then after that I'm writing about a wedding venue. They will probably be better blogs than this one. In the meantime, to get regular updates about the blog, you can try your luck with the algorithmic hellscapes of social media! I'm active on Instagram, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. I've also recently gone onto Threads, which is Zuckerbergs Twitter. It's actually alright. I guess a broken clock is right twice a day.

Thank you for reading!