Saturday 3 April 2010

Abandoned...


The cottage above is at South Glendale, South Uist. All over the place here there are these homes which have just been left to decay - many of them seemingly still in very good condition at the point at which the owners moved on. In a lot of cases you can see "house history" - the ruins of an old blackhouse, next to that a more modern whitehouse, then a 1920's - 1950's style building, then in many cases a more modern bungalow or "one and a half storey" house. See above for a good example of one of the above - it's peculiar mainly to Scotland I think. This is another case of a subject telling me what treatment it wanted - (Nick, I thought you might enjoy this one as I know you like your mono shots!) although the corrugated iron roof was once painted in red most of the colour has flaked away leaving very little colour in the building itself. 

At the point of taking this shot I had quite startlingly wet feet - on the walk we had just completed I had managed to go into a peat-bog up to the knees, and the problem with very waterproof walking boots is their reluctance to let water out, once it has got in. Squelch. My boots are now sitting in the kitchen drying........

Robyn

3 comments:

MurdoHMacInnes said...

My Grandpa Alex MacInnes grew up in that house!

Robyn said...

Murdo that's amazing! I always wonder a bit about the history of the places I photograph on the "abandoned" theme - I know that often the reason they are abandoned is that another house is built elsewhere on the croft, but it's still sometimes hard to actually think of the abandoned place as a thriving family home!

MurdoHMacInnes said...

Yes that is the reason it was left, currently the building is just used for storage and to shelter pet lambs now and again