Continuing the theme of mankind’s interaction with nature: exploring Tillicoultry Quarry by drone for some interesting angles on the rock aggregate – semi-abstract patterns, textures and colours.
As before, I made a 360º panorama above Tillicoultry Quarry too.
Situated outside Livingston, the psychiatric hospital at Bangour Village was founded in 1906 as Edinburgh District Asylum – one of the first in Scotland to be modelled on a village. In 1918 it housed up to 3000 patients. During the second World War, patients were transferred temporarily to Hartwoodhill Hospital. Around 1924-1930 it gained a multi-denominational church in the centre of the village.
These days the site consists of several listed buildings, most in increasing states of decay – ideal territory for urban exploration.
A few views from ground level:
And a handful of photos made with the drone:
Also see an aerial 360º drone panorama of Bangour I made using Hangar360.
The final ward closed in 2004 – worryingly one of those “in my lifetime” things…
Many years ago, as I was buying my first ever house in Perth, I remember the solicitor advocating the Sma’ Glen as a landscape to explore and photograph. He wasn’t wrong, but it’s taken over a decade to really start to explore it properly.
First there’s the natural appreciation of the place – light and landscape.
Taken right above the Highland Boundary Fault line looking north to the Sma’ Glen, Dallick House and plantation on the right and Roman Signal Station just visible as concentric rings in the bracken above a small burn.
Then comes the realization, due to geology, that the incredibly lumpy landscape is actually due to the Highland Boundary Fault running right through it – here, from left to right, along the line of the base of the hills and mountains. Lowlands beneath and behind, Highlands beyond to the north.
The second realization, due to heritage, is that the Romans had a series of “glen-blocker” forts along the Gask Ridge, of which one was situated here, at Fendoch. They even had a Signal Station across the road(!) – more accurately, across the fault line too – to alert the fort to incoming invasion from the north.
These days the fort itself is no great shakes – a few stone walls remaining and some faint outlines of rectangular structures beyond – and the Signal Station is a couple of concentric rings and a hint of more structure in the bracken.
Of course the final realization is thanks to the drone: rather that just the “intimate landscape” features within a few meters of one’s nose, one becomes aware of the landscape on a different scale of multiple miles and the way it’s divided up by roads and habitations (and how those have changed over the millenia).
Roads slicing up the landscape: taken above the Roman Signal Station at the foot of the Sma’ Glen, looking south-east over the Highland Boundary Fault to Fendoch Roman Fort (between the pylons and Stroness hill in the distance) and thence along Glen Almond.
The intended road from Rosal due east was closed for road-works; I took an incredibly long detour all the way to the far north coast of Scotland – next stop the Faroes and Greenland – and stopped at Portskerra to make a couple of long exposure landscapes as the light faded to dusk.
The coastal geology was impressive – alternating areas of gneiss and sandstone with clear strata in the rock.
Portskerra at dusk – a long exposure of waves lapping around rocks on the beach looking north – next stop Greenland…
Dounreay in the distance beyond the next headland
This was a strange place of varying thoughtfulness. Having previously visited Aoineadh Mor and found its handful of ruined crofts more thought-provoking, this was rather the opposite experience: having far more settlements dating back thousands of years including cairns, a souterrain and remains of crofts, with a history of particularly brutal evictions, there’s no real viewpoint from which one can see the extent of the clearing and experience all the time or place at once, so it lacks a certain atmosphere.
One thought, however. The Highland Clearances were mostly for the purposes of replacing crofting (seen as not cost-effective) with sheep farming (supposedly profitable). In practice, it’s a story about commercial failure: the sheep did not prove profitable, rendering the grassland barren; the monoculture spruce woodlands being farmed as the latest cash-crop are also barren, failing to nourish the land; the eviction of folks living a subsistence existence (which increasingly feels the innocent honest approach) was an offence against humanity – and yet the blasted sheep still remain.
The state of the Forestry Commission’s tourist information boards also being cast down on the ground, however, did provoke thought – is that sheer vandalism, an artistic statement about care and decay of property, or super-artistic irony that preservation itself should go the same way of all things?
The landscape did provide a few moments of beautiful contrast, illuminating the foreground trees against the shadowy dark might of Ben Loyal, however:
Ben Loyal from Rosal Clearance village
Strathnaver is a beautiful area – rural life, peaceful and quiet, where the only traffic jam is a herd of sheep trundling along the road beside the loch. Simple and elemental, a play of sky and land, light and limited human influence.
Outside Altnaharra:
Beside Loch Naver:
Of course it is also very much Runrig territory; sitting at the end of Strathnaver, it suffered in the Clearances – I wonder what size of catchment area is required to keep that primary school active.