Me & dweeb found ourselves in Walsall yesterday after following some leads which for various reasons couldn't be done. On the way to one of these, other stuff was literally everywhere, and so many flattened areas of crushed brick that it pains me to think what we've missed.
The dereliction radar was working well, and spotting some broken windows we eventually stumbled into this timecapsule through a nondescript door on a city street.
Walsall became a centre of leather working and saddlemaking in the 1800's after the local coalfields were exhausted, the town today has pretty much lost this industry but the workshops can be seen, converted to other uses. It would have been like the jewellery quarter in Birmingham, lots of tiny workshops with rows of people cutting and making up the leather goods.
This place was ridiculously needle ridden on the groundfloor, but a time capsule all the same. Where floorboards were missing there were thousands of leather offcuts in the space below. Three tiny stories, but amazingly atmospheric, if a bit stripped out.
This was actually 1970's Miners Strikes:
Amazing to see, behind the stripped plaster, a sign that would have been on the end of the pub next door before this building was built.
The dereliction radar was working well, and spotting some broken windows we eventually stumbled into this timecapsule through a nondescript door on a city street.
Walsall became a centre of leather working and saddlemaking in the 1800's after the local coalfields were exhausted, the town today has pretty much lost this industry but the workshops can be seen, converted to other uses. It would have been like the jewellery quarter in Birmingham, lots of tiny workshops with rows of people cutting and making up the leather goods.
This place was ridiculously needle ridden on the groundfloor, but a time capsule all the same. Where floorboards were missing there were thousands of leather offcuts in the space below. Three tiny stories, but amazingly atmospheric, if a bit stripped out.
This was actually 1970's Miners Strikes:
Amazing to see, behind the stripped plaster, a sign that would have been on the end of the pub next door before this building was built.
