# Jabez Clliff & Co Limited June 2010



## Dystopia (Jun 6, 2010)

Walsall, despite now not being good for much other than breeding chavs has a lot of history behind it. I love going to the exhibitions in the local library because they show that one time, this was a good place to live. Walsall was once very famous in the leather industry, especially the creation of saddles. This is why the local football team is called The Saddlers. I’m told that there still are surviving leather factories in Walsall but the majority, like all industry, are now gone. 

I decided to do a slightly reckless thing and go here solo. I knew not how good or crap it would be and would not have liked to have called someone from further afield to explore for it to turn out to be one room. As luck would have it, this place was pretty marvellous! 

I entered and found an empty room...so far so good and I was relieved that despite the number of syringes outside, there were no undesirables inside. I rounded the corner to a place that smelled of leather. If you too like this smell then I recommend a visit to this location. I tried not to make sounds but it was hard given the sheer amount of metal bits strewn over the floor. 

There was a rope coiled high above the ceiling and I watched as it moved seemingly by itself. I hoped that it was to do with gravity but feared that I was not alone in that building. There were thuds coming from the upper levels intermittently and I hoped that they were just things banging in the wind. I took a breath and ascended the stairs. I listened to the contented coos of pigeons. If they do not sound distressed then I reasoned that there must be no humans up there. Mercifully I was correct.

The banging kept being heard from the upper levels and I decided not to bother going where it was coming from and went across the courtyard. The windows on the one side were broken but quite intact on the other. I looked at the panes winking in the sun and a pigeon casually stared back down at me from a windowsill. I quickly got in through the window into a typical factor-style room with pillars and speakers. The open courtyard made me feel very vulnerable and exposed.

As I rounded a corner, my worst fears were confirmed – Stomping down from the upper floor was a single set of footsteps. To me, they sounded not like those of a fellow explorer but those of a person who perhaps saw this place as their own and had been disturbed. I dived round a corner into a dark alcove beneath a staircase. There was a drop that I hadn’t anticipated and for that moment feared injury. It was just a small drop and the cupboard had a nice brick shelf for me to sit on.

I listened to the footsteps recede into the far end of the large room and to what was reminiscent of going through cutlery in a drawer. I know not what the person was doing and there was no way on this earth that I was going to break cover just to find out. I sat there feeling a bit shaky and as silence fell, I gave it a good twenty minutes just in case the other person too was playing a hiding game and had sinister intentions. 

I had made a decision to dash for the window as soon as I felt the presence upstairs had forgotten about the sounds. However, I found the admin section and quietly took a few snaps before executing my original plan of getting out of that place as quickly as I could. There was a hole in the ceiling that looked as if it may have had some sort of trap door at some point. I hurried on, fearing that a junkie would peer down at me, or worse a pack of them. They would perhaps gaze at me with their dark-rimmed, dead eyes before coming down the stairs and battering my cranium into the plethora of solid objects, before taking all personal belongings and squabbling over them like vultures over flesh.

To be honest, this place was pretty five star if you were a smackhead. Add Action was just up the road for swapping needles and perhaps getting methadone. Here was a nice ruin with not overly obvious access where you could shoot up and sleep. Just across the road is a massive park, which I’m sure boasts some wonderful mugging opportunities. Jabez Cliff is near enough in town to go for begging and stealing but far enough out so as not to see the police very often. 

I knew my entrance and exit point well, dashing for it and making it back into the open. I was relieved to be back outside again and whilst I enjoyed myself, I’d much rather explore with a buddy. I did have a good two hours in here though, even without counting the hiding so I can’t complain too much.

If anyone wants to visit this place, I’d love to go back myself with other folks. I know that I had missed a lot looking at other reports but as a lone woman I wasn’t going to risk a confrontation with someone potentially high and psychotic or at least desperate enough to kill for their next hit of heroin.


They had an international market.






Auf Deutsch. 





Half-made saddles.










Some familiar place names for me.





Motifs for Marshall...sounds like a good name for a band that makes weird music. Perhaps it's only I that think that. 























































To see the rest, go here: http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r92/Dystopian_Wanderer/Jabez Cliff Walsall 2010/


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