Abandoned...

Loch Druidibeg, South Uist... 

Robyn.

Abandoned...

Another one for the “Abandoned” Series today – and a slightly different subject for this one, too! Those of you who watched the “Restoration Man” Series on the television might remember that one of the properties they showed was an old abandoned church on the Island of Berneray in the Outer Hebrides. Well this is effectively it’s “twin” – just a few miles South on North Uist, at Trumisgarry.

(Excuse the jaunty angle in the shot above – the old Manse still stands next door, and is inhabited, and without going into their garden I couldn’t get further back than this to take the shot – even our widest lens was having none of this size of building!)

This building is a “Parliamentary Church” – Designed by Thomas Telford following an Act of Parliament in 1832 providing Grants for the building of churches and manses in communities without any church buildings. Of the 43 churches originally planned, 32 were built around the Scottish Highlands and Islands – including this one and the one up on Berneray (There were originally others in Harris & Lewis also – those have now been demolished, however.)  

They were designed as a deliberately simple, T-shaped  structure – solidly yet cost-effectively built, with – for the time – very simple windows and just two doors. Some of the windows in this building still have their glass, although the roof has completely gone (and the timbers from it been “recycled” presumably, as there is no sign of them inside!) and all that remains is the stone and metalwork.

In order to make best use of the Church it doubled for a while as a school – I should have imagined this would have been a mighty uncomfortable place to take your lessons – especially in the depths of winter!  It ceased to be used as a place of worship in 1941, and has been steadily falling into dereliction ever since.

Although simple it’s a remarkably beautiful structure – anyone who saw the programme showing what was done with the one on Berneray will know this already. Sadly I suspect this one is doomed to stay as it is – with the Manse next door already having people living in it it’s unlikely that anyone looking for permission to renovate this one would be allowed as the two properties are, as you would expect, right next to one another.

Robyn.

Abandoned...

We've driven past this building countless times, and almost every time I've found myself thinking "I bet that would make a great photograph, in the right light" but then we've driven past, on to the beach, or to climb a hill....even, on occasion, to the pub. This time though the light was right, and I asked Ben to pull over a bit further along the road so I could run back and take some shots.

Corrugated Iron used to be a popular building material over on the islands - you see it in use often, not only for roofs like this, but for walls too...must be a bit chilly and draughty, I would think? You can only wonder at the noise this roof would have created in heavy rain, or worse, hail! Perhaps that was why it was abandoned in the first place?

Robyn

Abandoned...

A bit of an unusual one, this. Normally, the shots in this series have been a building, which has been physically abandoned as a conscious and planned decision - houses that have been upgraded to "the next one on the ladder" or the school, which was closed as part of a planned closure package, and the children sent on to somewhere new and, allegedly, better. This time though it’s a whole set of islands - St Kilda, the most westerly of the Outer Hebridean Islands, last inhabited in 1930, which was when the final 36 St Kildans left, having done battle with the elements for as long as they could. Hirta, Soay, Boreray & Dun are the major islands in the group - although in this shot you can *just* see Stac Lee on the side of the right hand island. (In case you’d not worked it out by the way - St Kilda is the islands which show as vague smudges on the horizon. The five quite distinct lumps of rock slightly closer in are Heisgir).

St Kilda is all the remains above sea-level of a volcano that was probably last active around 60milllion years ago. As a result pof this some of the rock comprising the islands is highly magnetic - you would do well not to rely too heavily on your compass here! It’s also so far west that nights last only around 1 hour in midsummer! (Having said that, it was still light here at around 10.30pm last night!)

One of these days we hope to visit St Kilda - at the moment the £150 or thereabouts price tag is outside our budget, though!

Robyn

Abandoned...

Hurrah! Three days here - it must be time for an "Abandoned" shot! Todays building is the old school at Lochboisdale on South Uist. I had an altogether different building in mind for this until Ben commented how much he'd always liked this one and what a fantastic building it is. Looking at it I think you will have to agree that he's quite right - it's so sad that such a fabulous building has been taken out of use, it's only just over 100 years old but sadly the islands dont require so many schools as they used to - the fashion now is for fewer schools with more pupils in each, so the children of primary age from Lochboisdale now, rather than trotting up the road to their very own local school, have to travel around 4 miles to the primary at Daliburgh instead. As they get older the travelling time gets ever greater.

Bird of the day today would have to be the Short Eared Owl that flew right in front of us earlier on - so close we got an excellent look at him!

Robyn

Hebrides Countdown.....

This picture illustrates nicely a subject I have touched on before - that of houses getting abandoned as families "upgrade" to the next step on the property ladder. In the foreground just the walls remain of the original blackhouse, whilst beyond that the whitehouse has lost its roof, but a lot of the internal features were still in place. Where these people moved to we have no way of knowing - due to the lack of road access this entire area was dotted with these ruins as people had moved to somewhere more accessible. There is even an old school left to ruins - fascinating stuff.

We've now reached the time of year when thoughts start to turn more and more to our next trip up - lists have started being prepared, new camera memory cards ordered, and a reminder has flashed up on my iPhone this evening that we have to pay the cottage deposit quite soon. Ferry tickets will also need booking - although with only the one operator (Calmac) running ferries to the islands this is the only time in the year I book travel without shopping around for a better price! Our intention is that, as last year, we will travel across from Mallaig on the Scottish mainland to Armadale on Skye on the ferry - slightly more expensive but far more fun than driving all the way around the road - we will after all see Eilean Donan Castle (or Eileen's Doughnut as friends of ours always refer to it!) on the way back, and the ferry ride really feels like we have started the holiday proper even sooner!

Robyn

Abandoned....

Another on a theme I've explored before, today. It does fascinate me, up here, the way perfectly respectable looking dwellings seem to just get abandoned by folk. Sometimes it's understandable - they are upgrading to a place with better facilities, more often than not right next door to the house they are leaving, but this one is just, well, abandoned. You wonder what has happened to make the people just walk away - perhaps it was someone living alone who died, with nobody who wanted to make use of the property to leave it to.  Some - like this one - appear structurally sound, whilst others are nothing more than the remains of some walls and possibly a chimney still standing defiantly. One not so far from here is the perfect shell of a house - four walls, chimneys, and two dormer windows standing proud, but the roof and interior walls completely missing. Sometimes they are close enough to the road that you can risk a poke around - others, like this, lay some way back off the road and to go any closer would be intrusive, even if to all intents and purposes the house is now unloved by anyone else.

Tomorrow is our annual shopping trip to the bright lights and big city that is Stornoway. The early ferry beckons and a late-ish return here tomorrow may mean no post on here tomorrow. We'll see though.

Robyn

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

An old favourite....

Another day of wild weather - today to add to the high winds we have been experiencing snow and hail, sometimes together. The combined effect has been like regularly having our faces shot-blasted at close range - I believe that in America people probably pay for that sort of treatment....

The shot above is of The Old Pier at Loch Skipport - I'm sure I've featured this before - it's one of our favourite spots on the Islands and we always make a point of visiting. I had a feeling when taking this shot that it was going to end up in Black & White but as sometimes happens the shot had other ideas and refused point-blank to have it's colour removed.  Loch Skipport is a strangely evocative place - you can still catch echoes of what a busy, bustling place it once was - steamers called there up until the 1950's after which Lochboisdale at the Southern end of the Island (South Uist) replaced it in the itineraries. The pier was apparently originally built to accommodate the arrival of Queen Victoria when she visited the Island.

Robyn.

Desert(ed) Island...

Something we have talked about doing pretty much each and every year since we first started visiting the Hebrides is walking across at low tide to visit the island of Vallay - just off the coast of North Uist.  At last today the weather and the tides were right so we set off 1.5 miles across what is for most of the time seabed to explore. Vallay was occupied until 1945 but since then has been abandoned. Vallay House itself is now largely derelict and is unsafe to enter, although it is possible to look in through some of the windows to get a flavour of the former grandness of the interior. If you are interested in finding out more historical details then Google "Vallay House" and it throws up some interesting links. There were others there when we first arrived but once they had left we had the place to ourselves - quite an odd feeling being on an entire Island without anyone else there, we agreed! The house itself is marvellous, and there are remains of lots of other buildings to look at although at the moment we're not clear on what a lot of them are. We'll certainly be hoping to go back at some stage in the future.

It seems almost impossible that already we have to be thinking towards packing up to go home.  Tomorrow will be a day of shopping for Salmon, Pate, oatcakes and Scallops to take home, and revisiting places and people for a last time before driving aboard MV Hebrides on Saturday morning to begin our journey homewards. It'd be hard not to feel a lingering sadness about the idea of leaving but we'll leave that for the ferry on Saturday - to do anything else now would be to spoil our last precious hours here, and anyway we'll be back -once the Islands have got under your skin it's unthinkable that you would not return.

Robyn