When I visit abandoned communities and cottages, I often genuinely feel that sense of isolation, hardship, abandonment and loss. As soon as I enter a property I can almost see the husband and wife going about their daily routines, trying to keep it all together against rising rents, unable to acquire their own place and the growing lure of the big city or abroad. Standing at the bedroom or kitchen window I can quite easily imagine how they felt or what might have been going through their minds at various stages of their life. Looking out of windows I can look at the landscape the previous owners saw. A view in someone’s memory, now in mine. Overlapping of memories. The permanence of the landscape makes this possible. Photographing windows became important and soon became a body of work in it’s own right.
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“They call it the ‘Metropolean o’ the Waterside’. What they meant was that it was Glen Gairn’s metropolis; where they said ‘fowk had a’thing amang themselves’. This was Ardoch, one of the biggest clachans on Gairnside, whose fourteen fire-houses (houses with chimneys) lay on the lower slopes of Mammie Hill, looking down to where the River Gairn sweeps towards the River Dee.” The Land of the Lost by Robert Smith.
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A beautiful but remote and mostly abandoned area of rural Aberdeenshire.
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The land of Gairn stretches from Ben Avon in the west, in the heart of the Cairngorms to Morven neat Tarland in the east. It has a history of depopulation and the remains of many abandoned communities can still be found.
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This quite large area, sometimes known as the Howe of Cromar, is my home patch and has a long, ancient and interesting history. It has been farmed quite intensely and many abandoned places have either been renovated or completely removed. I keep finding little gems though.
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An area of outstanding beauty and steeped in history. There are many refurbished areas and a vibrant community but also some sadly neglected spots. I love visiting this area and there is a wealth of history about the area, easily located on the internet.
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Photographs taken at a place called Slack, near Tarland Aberdeenshire in Scotland.
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I visit this beautiful island on the west of Scotland often and I try to locate abandoned places here also but it is not as easy as I thought it would be. I will continue my 'croft crawling' and upload pictures here when I get them.
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