Castell Arberth/Narberth Castle

A few weeks ago, Raven and I went to stay with my Dad. I came across this castle by accident - My Dad got Raven to drive him on an errand, and the route went past this castle mound, which was partially obscured by how the road goes down a deep cut in the hill below it. I asked if we could visit the castle on the way back, and we did. If any of my readers are familiar with the Mabinogion, then they will recognise Castell Arberth as one of the chief courts of Pwyll, father of Pryderi. 

Narberth Cemetery

On our way to the castle we went into a cemetery by mistake - we were looking for the path up to the castle mound, and thought this might be through the cemetery, as the graveyard path initially seemed to slope up. The cemetery was founded in the 1930s, so most of the graves are 20thC, I think with some more recent ones. As it is quite a recently used/active cemetery, I only took one picture of the general cemetery area, rather than any of specific graves, and certainly no posing with the gravestones. 

Remains of the castle sticking up like fangs from the ground

The castle was up a different path. You can't see much of it from the road, only one of the towers, but once up there, a lot more of the castle is visible. It is hard, from what is left, to visualise that it was once a mighty fortress, at least the second built on that site, and was built sometime after 1246 (you can read the CADW page ::here::). There were signs around the place with artist's impressions of the original castle, but I think the windows in the paintings are a tad more Gothic than might have been based on the actual window shapes remaining. However, there may have been more pointed tracery in stone frames now long gone. 

This is just part of a broken tower, once attached to a building

It was a damp, muggy day, with a dull grey sky, so I apologise in advance for the photographs being hazy and the skies being boring. I took all the photographs on my phone, as well, as I still haven't got a replacement camera. I'm currently unemployed, so it will be a while before I can afford a decent camera.

Raven was there too, and he took a couple of pictures of me.

Window into the cellar

The most complete part of the building is the pantry/kitchen cellar, with its tough barrel vault weathering the test of time. It's the building that Raven's standing in front of in the picture above. A lot of the stone from the castle was reused to build the town/village of Narberth (Arberth in Welsh) that surrounds. It's a very craggy-looking ruin, and the exterior walls, which would have likely been rendered and whitewashed to avoid the stone walls providing hand-holds, and to add an extra layer of protection from the elements, are now bare, with much of the walls' cores exposed. 

What is left of the great hall. 

The castle was built on a promontory, with a steep drop down to the graveyard below, and even further to the current road level. Geographically, it's quite a defensible location. I think the castle walls merge into a deliberate escarpment to the right of the buildings pictured above. Looking out over the trees now is quite magical. The vegetation there is very lush - West Wales is where parts of what is known as the 'Celtic Rainforest' grows - dense and green, watered by the decidedly soggy climate and warmed by the warm air currents that pass the West of the British Isles, brought by the Gulf Stream. 

Through the windows

The buildings were stabilised in 2005, after an extensive project to stop further ruination of what is left. Unfortunately, there has been graffiti since then, limiting what I could photograph (I don't want to put swear words, crudely drawn phallic images and suchlike on my blog) and also damaging the stonework as it would be difficult to remove the spray paint from the walls without also damaging the surfaces of the stones. It saddens me that I often go to castles and other ancient monuments and there's litter, beer cans (and sometimes worse) and graffiti - the results of people disrespecting their heritage. Ones that charge for entry tend to have less, but I think it's more the supervision of stewards than the price that changes things. 

I went through that doorway.

I did see a family taking their children for a stroll, which is a good thing - nice to see children being taken to such things at young age, hopefully to grow up more respectful of the castle than those who spray-painted the graffiti. I get really angry about people damaging historical buildings.

Inside what's left of the great hall

You can see corbels jutting from the walls where once sat the joists for the first floor. I don't know if there was a second storey on this part. The towers definitely had ground floor, first floor and second floor at least, probably with battlements behind crenelations. All of that is gone now. You can also see where they changed their mind about a window and walled it up into an alcove. 

Note corbel and hole in the wall where a beam once slotted in

I probably spent longer exploring and taking photographs than we really had time for. I find such ruins quite captivating. 800 years is pretty ancient in many ways, but it's actually relatively recent in Welsh history. Near Narberth/Arberth is a truly ancient hill-fort that is thousands of years old. It's somewhat overwhelming at times just how much history there is, layered all around us. I'll have to visit more of the really ancient stuff and blog about that, too. 

The arches are roughly Gothic, but it's hard to tell what the windows looked like with any more detail than that. The castle, like most medieval castles, also had a chapel, which I would expect to have church-like Gothic windows, maybe once having stained glass. Now there's just a hole in the wall. I wonder what happened to the glass. 

The hat and cloak make me look particularly severe.

Raven took a picture of me looking very serious by a window. I'm such a tourist sometimes - I want an 'I was there' picture of me at the places I visit. You can see how much better the resolution is on Raven's phone camera than on mine. I visited two other castles while I was in Wales, and I'll update my blog with those in the near future. 

Photographic Collaboration With Raven: Haverfordwest Castle

In April, Raven and I went to Wales. It was more a family visit than a holiday, and I was mostly doing work (coursework, too) but we also went on a day-trip to Haverfordwest (yes, that name is all one word). We went by train and were supposed to meet up with one of Raven's friends, but they ended up having to cancel, so we got the afternoon to wander around the town.

Train selfie with Raven.  Photo and editing by me.
Raven is reluctant selfie person!

Haverfordwest has a very prominent castle. It was pretty much the first thing I saw walking from the station, and I am, as you probably all know, quite obsessed with castles, so I really wanted to visit the castle. The weather was coming in, however, so we couldn't stay too long. 

Church with storm clouds. Photo by me, editing by Raven.

On the way up to the castle, I spotted the storm clouds above this church, and borrowed Raven's mobile to take a photograph. The photograph is my work, the editing is all Raven's work. He really brought out the impending doom in those clouds - shortly after this there was a terrible downpour. We were at the castle at the time and got thoroughly soaked!

Clouds and windows. Photograph by me, editing by Raven and I.

Another photograph of the castle ruins. This is one by me, with editing by Raven and I. Raven did the contrast and colour adjustments on the architecture, and I did the editing on the sky. I would imagine that the castle was once quite impressive, with grand Gothic windows, and quite a large building indeed. I had fun editing the sky on this one - it is deliberately a bit fantastical, although those are real clouds. 

Clouds above the ruins. Photo probably by Raven, editing by Raven.

This another atmospheric photograph of the castle. Neither Raven nor I can remember which of us took this photo, as we both tried to photograph this view. The flag flickering was the Welsh flag. Personally, I believe it was Raven who took this photograph. Raven certainly did all of the editing on this one. 

Raven in an alcove. Photograph by me, editing by Raven.

This is the portrait I took of Raven in another one of the alcoves. The original composition I tried was with him at the end of a row of several alcoves, but he was too tiny on the camera phone photographs. It took several attempts to get him in focus, too, as it is hard to use a touch screen when it is raining! Raven's always dressed in black, but he's a lot less elaborate than me in his tastes. Raven thinks this looks like what an album cover photo would look like if he  ever released one. 

Me in an alcove. Photo by Raven, editing by Raven and tweaked by me.

This is the photograph Raven took of me hiding from the weather in an alcove. Most of the editing is Raven's, but I tweaked the contrasts on my outfit a bit. I didn't have space in my luggage to bring chunky Lolita shoes, so I am wearing Gothic pikes with a Gothic Lolita outfit here! Walking around a castle in pointy shoes with stiletto heels was not comfortable, and not easy for someone with a co-ordination issue! I wish I had brought some flat Lolita shoes with me. 

Stairs. Photograph and editing both by Raven.

This last photograph is all Raven's work. I didn't go down the stairs because it had a used condom at the top, and all sorts of litter down at the bottom. I don't think Raven went to the bottom of the stairs either. As beautiful as the ruins are, it is clear they are not well looked after - so much litter, some if it quite grim, such as several used condoms, broken glass and plenty of cans and suchlike indicating people had been drinking heavily up there. There was also dog mess. It is a shame because it is an amazing ruin, a jewel crowning the town. Visiting it in such dramatic weather should have been sublime (in the more archaic version of the term), but it was marred by having to constantly watch my step, and not just because of wearing heels. There is a museum on site, and I am surprised there are no wardens or stewards to prevent people from abusing the ruins. 

Altogether, it was still a pleasant visit, even if the rain soaked us (we scurried away to a gallery and cafe to dry out and warm up) and the ruins were besmirched by those who don't respect them. The skies were beautiful and dramatic, and the castle itself is a stunning ruin. 

Urquhart Castle

I have visited Urquhart Castle several times. One February a few years ago Raven and I went there on Valentine's Day - for an engagement photo-shoot for another couple, where Raven was photographer! This time however, Raven and I were there for an afternoon out together, and I took my camera. The weather was windy, with heavy rain coming in - just perfect for atmospheric photographs!

I know I am rather overdue with these pictures. We went to Urquhart Castle in early April, and it is now late July. Between now and then I have been incredibly busy (hence the blog hiatus) and I am only going to get busier over the next few months. Blogging is only a hobby for me, and I have quite a few offline commitments that have to take priority. There are quite a few photographs here, and I hope those who have been waiting enjoy them. 

Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness. Photograph by HouseCat

Urquhart Castle is on the banks of Loch Ness - supposed home of the famous cryptid - and beneath the mountains. Geographically, it is in a stunning location, a place of incredible natural beauty. Strategically, it guarded the loch and the pass beneath the mountains.  In its glory days it would have been a vast compound - more of a walled town or village than a fortified house. It is in ruins because it was deliberately destroyed by its owners, Hanoverians who, after being beseiged by Jacobites once, decided it was better to blow up their own castle than let such a strategic point fall into Jacobite occupation. If I owned a castle, I don't think I could ever contemplate anything as drastic as blowing part of it up, regardless of strategic necessity!.  They began by blowing up only the gatehouse, but this was the beginning of structural decline for the castle, as even when peace came, it was never repaired, but instead was quarried for stone (as was common for ruined castles in times past - it happened to Rait Castle, Wallingford Castle, etc. etc.) 

Craghy ruins. Photograph by the HouseCat.

Of course, ruins become picturesque as nature begins to reclaim them - especially the ruins of structures once grand and beautiful themselves. I, a true Romantic, am drawn to windswept crags and ruined castles (apparently, I am in the good company of Neil Gaiman in these tastes!), and even when swarmed with tourists, Urquhart Castle loses none of its majesty and presence. The ruins stand upon great earthworks - sculpted out of hard ground - and this unnatural landscape, once practical and now alien, gives an eerie quality to the place. The remains of buildings perch on arteficial ridges, above deep defensive ditches gouged out of the earth. I did read about whether the moat held water while I was there, but can no longer remember; if it did, the castle would have seem even more isolated, turned into its own island fortress like Eileann Donan Castle, or Le Mont-Saint-Michel.

Ruined wall with arrow slit. Photograph by HouseCat

The castle walls are now partly reclaimed by the landscape, seeming to almost be a geological feature in places, a crag or cliff with grass growing out of it and rough escarpments of boulders. There is enough remaining masonry for it to be built by the hand of man, but it is slowly blending into the Earth with time. ::Historic Scotland:: are doing a brilliant job of maintaining and preserving it as best as is humanly possible, but it is stone exposed to the scourging winds, rain, snow and frost of the Scottish climate - the elements and the centuries will take their toll; it is inevitable. 

A brooding sky. Photo by the HouseCat

That harsh Scottish weather that I mentioned made its presence felt the day of our visit. It started out bright, slightly over-cast but mostly sunny. There were fast-moving clouds on the horizon and a keen wind. As our visit progressed, the wind got harsher and colder, and the rain blew in with darkening clouds, leaden and grey. I did not get any good photographs of this (but Raven did), but the rain coming down the Loch was a sight to behold; a curtain of what seemed like almost opaque mist rapidly drawing towards us, lit by the afternoon sun, and shaded by thick clouds in bruise colours.

Best photograph of the rain I got. Photo by HouseCat

Before the rain came in, I took 111 photograph of Urquhart Castle - and a surprising number turned out relatively well. It was hard to pick favourites for this blog - I have the same problem I had with my photographs of Edinburgh Castle! There is something about exposed Scottish castles on bleak days that really compels me to try and capture a visual record - but no photograph I take really expresses what I feel when I am there and whatever flourishing words and purple prose I use to describe it also falls short. All I can say is to visit for yourself if you get the chance, preferably on a day where the weather is at least drizzling (this is Scotland, such days are frequent) and there are fewer tourists about (probably because it is raining). 

Raven stepping out of the shadows. Photo by HouseCat

Despite being a ruin, it is not a place of desolation; the landscape is too mountainous, too forrested. Even with the wind whipping at my jacket and trying to snag my hair out of my (velvet) bandana, it seemed like when the walls and roofs had been intact it would have been good shelter against even the worst of the Scottish weather - which includes flash floods and winds in excess of 100mph in lower areas and in excess of 150mph up on the mountains. The gable end of a hotel near here was blown down in a recent storm, but I doubt any such thing would happen to the walls of the castle; if it had not been for deliberate destruction of various sorts, I think the castle could easily be standing whole to this day, and what remains will probably remain for centuries more. 

Base of a round tower and a shard of wall, overlooking the waters of Loch Ness

I did stare down into the depths of Loch Ness, hoping for a glimpse of the fabled monster, but I saw nothing. Logic tells me that any plesiosaurs or similar creatures that may have lived within the loch aeons ago will be long dead, with no contemporary descendents swimming in the murky dark, but the poetic aspects of me want to believe that somewhere in the seemingly unfathomable depths, the creature or creatures lurk, feeding on the fish that swim alongside, and avoiding humans with their loud engines and bright lights. I bought my 3 year old neice a souvenir monster hat - it's too big for her head so she wears its sideways with the tail draped across one shoulder, and the head dipped down to the other. I bought her several books too - including 'Nessie Needs New Glasses' by A. K. Paterson, as it includes an introduction to Scottish places. I keep promising her that one day she and her mother will come visit me in Scotland and we can all go to ::Nessieland:: and wander around Loch Ness looking for 'Niseag' as she is called in Gaelic. 

Steep stone spiral staircase. Photo by HouseCat

One thing I will warn potential visitors about is that the stairwells are for the most part medieval - this means they are narrow and cramped, with steep stone. I don't know if they ever originally had hand-rails (there must have been medieval people who thought hand-rails were a good idea! It's just practical!) but currently they have rope for a hand-rail (as pictured). Flat shoes, and patience for others on the stairwells are a necessity. I have spacial awareness and co-ordination difficulties due to neurological issues, so I had to walk slowly as I find going down stairs difficult at the best of times (I have to literally watch where I put my feet, and to take my time), and the tuts and glares I got from people behind me were not exactly polite.

Another stairwell photo. Photograph by HouseCat

If you are ever visiting the British Isles, I seriously recommend coming to Scotland if you like castles. While England, Wales, Northern and Southern Ireland all have beautiful castles, of all the places I have visited and all the castles I have visited (including those I visited before I began blogging) Scotland has the most castles in dramatic locations - by lochs and up craggy mountains being relatively common places to find castles.

Inside part of the keep. Photograph by HouseCat

One of my favourite things about Urquhart Castle is that despite being a ruin, there is enough of the structure that is still safe and stable for people to be actually able to go inside, and they have partially restored it in a way that greatly facilitates this. It was nice to be a little bit out of the wind, and it is interesting to be in these spaces with reconstructed wooden ceilings/floors and such. It is certainly not restored to how it was; the castle is very much in a state of ruin. It is, however, restored enough to make a lot more of the castle safely accessible than it would be otherwise, and to get a sense of how the remaining parts of the castle worked as buildings, rather than as a tumble of protruding stones. 

Great edifice. Rear of the keep. Photograph by HouseCat

As those who read my blog well know, I am rather fond of castles, especially ruined ones. Urquhart is no exception to that, and its location makes it one of my favourites. I love the natural world and the beauty of wild scenery even more than I love historical architecture (and that really is saying something!) so to visit a castle in such an amazing location really is a treat for me. I really got quite carried away taking photographs while I was there, and if (no, when) I next visit, there will surely be plenty more. It is somewhere that does not seem exhaustable for interesting angles, and as the light changes, the interplay of shadows changes; the shadows walls cast on each other, the shadows in the textures of the stones, the sense of space and the way I try and capture that in a mere flat image - it fluctuates literally with the weather. 

This view deserved to be in full colour. Photograph by HouseCat

Scotland has beautiful geography, and so much history. I love living here, and I do not regret having moved to here from where I was in England. I am much happier here amongst mountains and ruined castles, and I think only Ireland compares for rugged natural beauty, and Wales for castles (Ireland has some nice castles too, but in having visited more Welsh ones, I am probably biased). England is not boring, but I am definitely a 'mountains' sort of person - like Neil Gaiman, I seek the windswept craggy places and their solitude. Most of the hills around Loch Ness are more rounded, but there are certainly craggy ones near there too. One day, I hope to visit Urquhart Castle when it has freshly snowed, nice and early so that snow is mostly undisturbed... that would be perfect. 

Craig Dunain Cemetery

Yesterday I walked up out of the city up to the old Craig Dunain Hospital buildings, being guided by some friends. Craig Dunain Hospital initially opened in Victorian times as Inverness District Lunatic Asylum, and remained a psychiatric hospital right into the '90s when they transferred all of that to the New Craigs buildings just down the road. Craig Dunain hospital has a long, and fairly well documented history. I have lost several hours to trawling the web and reading about it, and looking at photographs of the hospital at different points in its history. Anyone who has an interest in Victorian 'Lunatic Asylums' should look it up, because its history is also one of the transition from the Victorian style institutions (of which Craig Dunain was apparently relatively progressive, especially in the promotion of eating for health and the use of time in the parkland and gardens surrounding for its therapeutic qualities - something that is once again being seen as valuable to mental health recovery) to modern mental healthcare, as the site was used until relatively recently, and was more shifted along the road to newer buildings than really closed. 

Photographed through the wire fence. Photo by Housecat

I have been up to that part of the city before, but not all the way to to the old hospital complex, and I was amazed by how huge it was, and what a beautiful old building it had initially been before time, neglect and several fires took their toll. Having seen old photographs of the interior, it apparently initially had quite lovely Victorian details, some of which were in a Gothic Revival style. Having looked at more recent photographs by an urban explorer at ::this:: page, it looked like some of the interior survived until 2003, but having been heavily altered over the years. Now it looks like it was entirely gutted, presumably by the fires, and parts of the roofs have collapsed, and looking from the outside through some windows, it looks like there's nothing left of the interior and it's just a shell. Either way, it now gives me the creeps, despite being the kind of architecture I quite like - maybe it's just all the fire-damage and scaffold reinforcements that tell me it's now an obviously dangerous and unstable ruin, or maybe it's the local stories about the place, some of which are quite grim, or maybe it's because other people have told me they've been in it and it's definitely haunted by some rather restless spirits, but it certainly had a sense of great foreboding. I stayed at the roadside, outside the perimeter fence - and even that felt too close sometimes.

As the photographs show, it was a cold, frosted and snowy day, with lots of icy paths for me to slip on, and a pale and wan sun. It was, at least, not too cloudy a day, just one where the sun never rose particularly high, and rapidly dipped low again behind the hill. There was settled snow on exposed surfaces, but underneath the tree cover, it was just cold, with a slight mist or low cloud. 

Snowy Ground. Photograph by Housecat

Beyond it, it what was once part of the hospital's parkland, beyond some woodland, is a small cemetery. Beside it is a plaque explaining a bit about its history, and a proper military memorial for one person interred within the cemetery who earned the Victoria Cross in Victorian times, but was left severely injured and suffering from what would probably be called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder today, and ended up institutionalised in the old Craig Dunain and buried somewhere within the graveyard in a pauper's grave. 

Looking over the graveyard wall. Photo by Housecat

There only appear to be two grave-markers still standing in the graveyard itself, but there's mossy mounds that look like broken graves rather than tree stumps, and my friend assures me that there used to be more grave markers. According to a quote on the plaque from when the cemetery was new, it was built "for the interment of patients not removed by their friends" - it seems so sad that there were enough people who died at that hospital and were not collected for burial by friends and family, and instead were interred here. There seems to have only ever been a handful of stone markers - indicating that some at leat did not have pauper's graves, as stone memorials have always been expensive - but I guess the majority had simple wooden crosses that have long since rotted away. Apparently much was done to make the graveyard a pretty floral garden with nice trees, but the trees rapidly over-took the garden, especially as much of the trees are yew, and yew kills whatever is beneath it. There are two enclosures, one with an external gate, that I presume was the initial cemetery, and another of equal size beside it, which I presume was an extension, and is accessed internally. The cemetery was closed in 1895, when they ran out of space. I don't know what happened to people who died at Craig Dunain after 1895.  

A remaining marker, a stone cross. Photo by HouseCat

Nearby in the woods are three small crosses, lanterns and floral tributes that seem to be from the last year or two, and perhaps are markers for scattered ashes, or as there is a pet cemetery for the pets of patients and residents of Craig Dunain, and of what appeared to be 'ward' pets, maybe the crosses mark further pet burials. I didn't take any photographs of the crosses, or of the pet cemetery. 

The dividing wall between the two enclosures.

It seems sad to me that these people seemed almost forgotten at the time of their deaths, at least by people outside of the hospital, and that now there is little to remember them by except for the wall and some trees - only two markers, most graves without anything recording the names of those buried within. It is not that they are from so long ago that time has forgotten them - there are plenty of markers in the cemeteries within the city that still have names from before 1864 when the hospital was first opened. I have read that in times past, families would basically abandon relatives deemed insane, and carry on as if they had never existed, bound by the stigma around mental illness and behaviours then not socially acceptable. I wish someone would go through the old hospital records, because there must have been some record, even if it was just for the expense of hiring someone to dig a grave, and to place a plaque by the cemetery listing all those buried within, so that they don't remain forgotten. 

I apologise for photo quality; they were taken on my smartphone rather than my proper camera. Photographs edited in a combination of GIMP, which I am just learning to use, and PicMonkey. 

Rait Castle & Barevan Graveyard: Raven's Photographs

Raven is photographer at ::Chance Photography:: and these are his photographs from the photography trip. 

✥ Rait Castle

Rait castle is located roughly two miles south of the town of Nairn, and about sixteen miles east of Inverness. A modest castle in my opinion, it could easily be mistaken for a derelict chapel or church.The castle is reported to be haunted, but this wasn't a ghost hunting trip, and it was far too bright a day to tempt out anything spooky!

The image above is a simple one, I liked how the shadow matched the line of the top of the wall. All I had to do was line up the shot and hope for the best.

I decided to keep the sky a slightly desaturated blue as I didn't want to detract from the detail in the walls, which came out really nicely with a slight tweak of the contrast.

HouseCat: I really like this photograph, for its balanced composition and very unusual angle. I don't think I've actually seen an intersecting walls photograph quite like what Raven has done above. This has got to be one of my favourite photographs by him. I need to persuade Raven to print one off for our walls!

Here we have a classic angle of the castle - simply google "Rait Castle", and you'll see what I mean. I am pleased with the way the colours came out on the walls, and the way the reds pop out against the greens of the foliage.

HouseCat: There are indeed about 10 photographs from a similar angle on the first page of Google Images - not something we actually looked at before out trip to Rait Castle! I think this is the most obvious angle from which to take the castle, partly because there is actually enough clear ground on that side of the castle to step back far enough to get the whole length of the castle in one shot, which there isn't on the other side. One thing that is interesting is how every photographer's image, even from very similar angles, has different results. Weather, and thus lighting, is certainly one factor, but each photographer has chosen a slight difference in distance from the castle, or angle to the castle; different cropping, different saturation. Raven and I went to the same place and chose completely different sections of the building, but even between photographers who chose the same things, there's a lot of difference. 

This one is one of my favourites... Simple but effective, in my opinion. I enjoy taking photos like this one. I think it is because of the way the light bleeds in, highlighting details that would be otherwise washed out if you used a flash, or if it was in broad daylight.

This is a macro of algae on the wall. Nice and simple again... The thing that drew me to the shot was the clear division between cold rock on the wall, and this lush green algae bursting its way in.

HouseCat: Raven has a very good eye for small details, things that most people would miss. The world is very interesting if you pay enough attention to spot the fur at the edge of the algae in a crevice of a wall!

Shots like the one above are what I like to call "grab shots". I saw the House Cat taking a photograph (using one of my lenses) so I took the opportunity using my telephoto, which proved effective by blurring out the background, and really making her stand out in the image.

This was me taking those photographs of the windows on the upper storey of the castle. Usually, when I am not actively modelling, I try and scurry out of photographs because I'm not really very photogenic without making the effort to be (I discard half of my selfies because I end up looking ungainly with a weird expression on my face!). I think he's managed to get a good composition for a photograph that was taken slyly as I concentrated on making adjustments. 

In summary, it is a lovely little castle, and I hope it stays protected for a long time to come. I found myself imagining what it would have been like in its day, and what kind of people walked it's hall.

✥ Barevan Graveyard & Chapel

This is a graveyard we drove past on our way to Rait castle, and we agreed that it would be a good idea to stop there on the way back... Which we did.

This is a very old grave yard indeed, and a rather pleasant one at that.I have always found grave yards to be quite cold, but this one seemed rather welcoming in an odd kind of way... almost as if it liked being visited from time to time.

Another two photographers were in our group - Suzy Bugs, who was taking only wildlife photographs, so is not taking part in Architectural Photography Week, and a Goth-y friend who goes by the screen-name Hemlock. Hemlock lives in the area and knows the countryside there pretty well, and it was he that pointed out the farm track to Rait castle (so we didn't have to park at the side of the road and hike the steep way up!) and also pointed out this graveyard.

Here is an image which really caught my eye... I don't think the photograph does what I saw justice to be honest. I found the way the light gently flowing through the trees onto the stone and foliage was quite eye catching.

HouseCat: I tried to take photographs of  chapel from this angle (not realising that Raven was too!), and I could not get anything as pretty as this; it's a testament to Raven's skill that he actually got something where the all the different layers and light levels in the image, from the brightness looking into the chapel through that window, to the details of the stones in the shade, are visible and nicely captured. 

Here is a simple photograph, which was initially intended to go in my texture library. It is a close up of a large stone sphere. I liked the way the structures of the rock are revealed through the polishing of the sphere, and through weathering over time. This is located in a smaller section, which belongs to the Cawdor family.

And here, we have the final image from my little set... The watchman. He can be found watching over the graves in a tree in the corner to the left of the gate as you come in.This character seems to get mixed reactions off different people. Some think it's creepy, having a face in a tree (which is totally natural, I might add!) but I, personally, found its smiling gaze to be rather endearing.

All in all, a great day was had by everyone involved, and it was nice to catch up with a couple of friends. I'll have to get back to Rait castle and do a shoot with a model or two at some stage, but anything like that is a way off yet!

Housecat: I volunteer to model, but Raven is probably sick of taking pictures of me! I hope you all enjoyed today's guest post by Raven. Hopefully Hemlock will be sharing his photographs from the trip tomorrow, and I will be back on Sunday to finish architecture week. 

Raven's photographs are NOT under the same "share if you properly attribute them to me and link back" rules as mine. I do not take photographs as a means to earn money, but he DOES, so please respect his work. If you want to share these photographs, share a link to the blog, rather than sharing the photographs themselves. Both of us will be every unhappy if we find our work being used commercially. This applies to all of his photographs on this blog, not just the ones here. 

Rait Castle

In which I show that I am indeed slightly obsessed with windows.
I organised a photography trip last Sunday to Rait Castle with Raven and a couple of friends. I'm starting off with my photographs, and have asked those that came with me if they would like to share some of their photographs of the same day, and these will be displayed in a couple of days. 

Rait Castle is a ruin between Nairn and Cawdor, on hill near some woodland, and overlooking the A939 and is an odd sort of place to, as the road to go towards it means taking a road away from it, as there's no direct access from the A939. It looks like a ruined church from the road due to having a tower and Gothic arched windows, but it was in fact a small and mostly non-defensive castle; the ground floor windows are narrowed and designed to limit access, but the upper windows being so large mostly negate this, and there are no earth-works and only small compound walls. It was more a grand country residence than a fortified structure. 

Rait Castle from the outside

Bright sky, dark stone

That said, it has a bloody history as can be read ::here:: on the Rait Castle website, and there are stories of the ghost of the murdered daughter. I had read all of this before visiting, but bloody family feuds and murder aside, there was nothing eerie or creepy about the castle itself. It is ruined, and I am sure it could look creepy, especially on the shaded interior, in the right weather conditions, but it did not feel creepy. There is, however, a ruined structure behind the castle that is largely overgrown and that does have an unnerving aura about it. According to the Preserve Rait website, it is likely the chapel. It is all over grown with brambles, wild roses and other sharp and woody thorns, so I was rather discouraged about exploring it. It gave me, and the others in the photography party, what I would call 'the heebie-jeebies'. Maybe the young maiden went to the chapel to beg God's aid mortally wounded, with her family slain around her, and maybe that is where she finally died... 

I have something of a fascination with the windows, and with windows in general. This is something that comes very much from the design geek within me, and I am a little afraid to share my thinking here lest it come across as pretentious art-school nonsense. I especially like the windows through old thick walls like here at Rait Castle because they create their own transitory alcove space, up to whatever grille or glazing would have been there. Empty windows dividing an outdoor space are certainly something I find really interesting, especially when nature has sprouted plants on what would have once been the interior, and when whatever roof once made the interior an interior is gone, so while the window still provides a view between spaces, the fact that they are all really part of one space is visible. 

Light shines through

For a long time creating sheets of glass like we have today was pretty much impossible, and only small pieces of flattish glass could be made, so if one wanted a big window, it had to made up of lots of little bits leaded together. In some cases, windows were just a very narrow gap that could be shuttered or curtained in bad weather. I didn't actually spend that much time trying to figure out how the windows at Rait would have been, but I guess that the big Gothic arches with their lovely carved stonework may have had leadlight windows, possibly with stained-glass sections for heraldry. I'm not sure what window the girl who lost her hands tried to climb out of, but having looked at how narrow most of them would have been with the central pillars intact, she must have been very slight; it would have been more reasonable that she tried to climb out of the upper door. 

I am curious as to how the building lost its front wall when the rest of the stonework has remained pretty intact. What remains of the front wall is very sturdy, and I do wonder if stone was deliberately taken from it rather than it crumbling or collapsing over time. The walls are several feet thick and built to last; the main threat to the building is the vegetation, as roots can penetrate small cracks and then grow to slowly push things apart. The roof would have been wooden, possibly slated, and I can imagine it being robbed for slates and the beams rotting over time. Considering how old it is, and for how long it has been abandoned, it is remarkably well preserved. 

Tomorrow I will be posting about Wester Bareaven Graveyard and the ruined chapel there - I got to borrow a Nikon, as my Canon had run out of battery, and I had a lot of fun photographing mostly the chapel ruins. 

Wallingford Castle

In which I photograph everything but the castle...
Another place I went to on my travels earlier this year was the ruins of Wallingford Castle in Oxfordshire. I was in the town because it is near where some relations of mine live, and Raven and I were visiting them. There Wikipedia article on the castle's history can be read ::here:: and is a good place to start, although while long for a Wikipedia article, it only really skims what is a approximately a millennia of history. Considering the wars, sieges, and floods it has survived and its varied uses from defensive castle to prison to location for a stately home, it is a piece of land with a LOT of history! 

Exterior of College of St Nicholas

The weather kept changing between cloud and sunshine, and as such it was hard to get a consistent set of photographs. Unusually for me, I tried photographing mostly in colour as one of the interesting things about the ruins is how many colours of stone were used to build them and the vibrant lichens that grow upon them. Most of the photographs are from a Gothic and ecclesiastical building called the College of St Nicholas (which was an organised community of priests, not the modern usage of the word to mean an educational establishment) as that is one of the buildings that remains more intact than most of the castle, of which some sections of wall remain, but which is mostly surviving earthworks. 

Spring flowers and picturesque ruins - not that Gothic!

I had a nice day out, and went for a lovely stroll around Wallingford town. I wore a frilled jacket and layered skirts, as while it was quite bright, it was not overly warm outside (British springtime). Raven took a picture of my standing by the wall. My hair looks rather blue here, but I can assure that it is the same emerald green it has been for a while. The wall does not look that tall in the first photograph, and as I am 5'9" tall, that should give some sense of scale to the wall.

Being thoroughly distracted by
my adorable not-quite-2-yet niece!

I will be back in the future, that is almost guaranteed, as I try to go back to visit my family in England as often as possible. The next time I go, I will try to take some more atmospheric photographs, and to take more photographs of what remains of the castle itself. I have been photographed here before, a long while back, by Raven when we were first dating. I would think it a lovely location for a photo-shoot. 

Fancy monuments. 

Just off the edge of the castle grounds is a small and ancient graveyard, once that to All Hallow's Church, which is no longer there, and with the relocated monument to Thomas Bennett's charitable bequest to the town, which is now by the road and I think this has contributed to its need for renovation recently as the the fumes combined with British can't have contributed well to the sandstone's longevity. Inside the monument is a carving of a vaulted ceiling, which really requires clambering into it, or at least sticking your camera in and hoping for the best, to get a good view and therefore isn't properly photographed here.