It being half way through half term we decided to take a day off to catch up with the children today... unfortunately work doesn't stop for school holidays so we have to do our best to grab some time with them when we can.Rain didn't entirely scupper our plans, we managed to get out between showers for an adventure in amongst the tangled green ruins of 'Fussels Old Ironworks' in the next village.
It is an extraordinary place, though potentially extrememly dangerous if you don't take special care!
This tree root below looked just like the muscular forearm of a Dragon or Griffin buried by rock or overgrown in a sleep of centuries...
Everytime I go there I am still caught with the urge to explore in wonder its tumbledown archways and tunnels, fascinated by the way industry has been almost completely reclaimed by nature.Water rushes everywhere, through sluices and underground culvetts, roaring through the walls where the huge wheel once turned.
It drips, every tree limb and broken wall swathed in thick fringes of bearded moss, ivy trails and ferns claim every fissure of the ruins.
In many ways it reminds me of the Film Noir masterpiece 'Stalker' by Tarkovsky that I posted a short clip of some time back here...
It was a dull day for photographs today and these don't do it justice, but in the summer it glows green, so verdant, so wild, yet it was not all so long ago that this place rang and smoked and steamed industry.
I have taken many pictures here over the years and it was a particularly great place for band shots... twelve or thirteen years ago I photographed my husband's band here, though it seems like yesterday! Some moody, some silly!
My brother in law
And a very young looking husband!
This stairway looks more and more precarious every time I visit but I love it... My Mum did a fantastic etching of this a few years ago, and many a band photo has been taken here too!
'Old Ironworks' Etching by Heather O' Brien
Great post, Carrie - that place looks fascinating, even in the flat light. The band photos are great also. Isn;t something about those old manual cameras. There are things I just couldn't have captured without my current digital - never having had zoom or other nifty things - but my best shots ever came from my old Ricoh camera. I now still have a functioning Pentax k 1000, but lazy and frugal, I use the digital exclusively.
ReplyDeleteLovely etching by your mum as well. Nice to have time with the children on an adventure!
The greenery has made the old iron works into something magical, the first pic looks like an elven path leading to the realms of the little folk, cant believe this building has been left to rack and ruin, as a piece of industrial history surely it must be preserved.
ReplyDeletePure magic! Thanks for sharing these.
ReplyDeleteSuch magical place! Very special indeed! Thank you for sharing these amazing pictures!
ReplyDeletejoana
Another one to add to my list of 'places I want to visit' Carrie, thank you so much for sharing. I love the photos you took on your Minolta - they look to have a Julia Margaret Cameron feel about them, wonderously dark and broody. You could recreate something similar digitally via image manipulation software such as Photoshop or similar freebie software such as GIMP which is pretty user friendly and not too difficult to get to grips with. I
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post,what a romantic place and I also enjoyed the photos of your husbands band!An inspiring post!
ReplyDeleteSuch a great set of images of the old iron works, there is something fascinating about visiting a place like that, i always end up imagining what must once been, very poignant. Love the shots of the band too, i do miss my old camera for the effects it could achieve.
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