Skulferatu #151 - Southern Lower Promenade, Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear

I am of an age where I can remember the fading glory of seaside towns.  The children’s parks and paddling pools, the outdoor swimming pools and the dodgy amusement arcades.  As a kid in the seventies, my family spent some holidays near and around these towns.  Holidays in rented caravans in parks near the sea where it seemed to rain for much of the time.  No wonder everyone else was buggering off on cheap holidays to Spain.  Though, like most kids, we didn’t care.  We paddled in the slightly scummy water in concrete paddling pools near the beach and we built sandcastles in the rain.  Went for picnics in the howling wind and ate our sand blasted egg sandwiches.  Washing away the grit in our mouths with bottles of lemonade – carefully wiping away the damp sand from around the top first before taking a swig of lukewarm fizziness.  We loved it. 

 

 

Postcard showing the Lower Promenade in its heyday

 

While wandering around Whitley Bay I came across the remnants of one of these faded glories down on the lower promenade.  There I stumbled over the remains of the children’s paddling pool.  Blue edged concrete with a faded aqua blue pool and a puddle of stagnant water sitting in the middle.  Oh, how it brought back memories of those holidays from long ago.  Traipsing around I found that much of the promenade had been covered with a layer of tarmac.  This was now disintegrating to reveal the old slabs laid in patterns that would have once given a jolly holiday feeling to the place.

 

 

A view over the Lower Promenade

 

 

The paddling pool

 

The Southern Lower Promenade was once a popular spot.  Built in 1926 along with the sea wall, it had, as well as the paddling pool, crazy golf, a sand pit and lots of stalls selling various things.  Part of the promenade was also transformed into gardens with grassed area, paths, staircases and seating.  It remained popular up until the 1980s when it was closed by the council, who deeming it unhygienic, covered a lot of it up in the crumbling tarmac that still defaces it today.

 

 

Old slabs revealed

 

 

Concrete and blue

 

 

The paddling pool

 

 

A view over the Southern Promenade

 

Though now rather an ugly, disfigured spot it seemed popular enough as I walked around, though mainly with people coming to stand by the railings of the sea wall and dodge the huge spraying waves.  I took a turn at this game as well until looking out at one wave coming in, I got soaked by the spray of another that had sneaked up upon me.  So, deciding to cut my losses I cut back along the cliffs sloping down to the promenade and there I left a Skulferatu in a gap in the rocks there.

 

 

Skulferatu #151

 

 

Skulferatu #151 in a gap in the rocks

 

 

Skulferatu #151 in a gap in the rocks

 

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #151

 

The coordinates for the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 55.042111

Longitude -1.436511

 

what3words: organs.magma.books

 

I used the following sources for information on the Southern Lower Promenade –

 

Rockliffe Remembers – Southern Lower Promenade

 

 

Skulferatu #134 - Derelict Farm Buildings, Scaur Water, Penpont, Dumfries and Galloway

 

On a sunny evening, I took a stroll around the outskirts of the village of Penpont.  A rural and sleepy, little place in Dumfries and Galloway.  Walking down a dirt track through the trees I could hear and see nothing of the modern world, and it made me think that the world must have looked much like this a couple of hundred years ago in the days of the fictional character Samuel Scrape.  He was a man from Penpont who played a brief role in, what in my opinion is, one of the greatest Scottish novels ever written – The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg.  The book, published in 1824, is satire on the Calvinist doctrine of predestination: in which it is believed that God sits outside of time and therefore has already preordained who is saved and who is damned.  The main character, Robert Wringhim is a staunch Calvinist who believes that he is one of those guaranteed Salvation.  He falls under the influence of a mysterious figure called Gil-Martin who can transform his appearance at will.  Gil-Martin leads Wringhim to believe that he is justified in killing those that he thinks are already damned by God, including his own brother.  At one point Wringhim has locked himself away, with his only company being his manservant, Samuel Scrape, a peasant from ‘Penpunt’.  However, Wringhim has no memory of having hired or paid Scrape and the suggestion is either that he was hired by Gil-Martin taking on the appearance of Wringhim, or that Wringhim is losing his mind. It all ends messily, and we are left wondering who Gil-Martin was, the devil, or maybe an aspect of Wringhim himself, a devilish figure of his own imagination.

 

I kept an eye out for a Gil-Martin type character on my walk, but met no-one.  Once, in the distance, I did spot a solitary dog walker, though they vanished down another path before I could get close enough to see if they had cloven hoofs and horns. 

 

A horned bush

 

As I walked, all was quiet around me, apart from the crunching of my feet on the gravel path, the bubbling of the Scaur Water flowing nearby and the birds singing up above.  Following the path around a tree lined corner I came across some derelict farm buildings that were collapsing in on themselves.  DANGER – KEEP OUT was painted in dripping white paint numerous times on the sagging walls, but being a curious type I had to go for a little nose around. 

 

Derelict buildings

 

Falling down

 

The empty eye of decay

 

Danger

 

Keep out - Danger

 

On peering through broken windows, I could see that the buildings were pretty much kaput.  The roofs were caving in, and the walls were tumbling down.  Electrical wiring hung down listlessly from broken beams and everything smelt of damp and decay.  Everything was in a creaking collapse, just waiting for a strong wind to take it all down.

 

A dragon, or maybe a pig?

 

A wire dangles

 

Collapsed

 

In the undergrowth

 

Walking around the back of the buildings my ears were assaulted by a sudden frenzy of squawking and cawing from what sounded like hundreds of rooks in the trees above me.  I then spotted several of their young fledglings bopping around in a panic at my approach.   Not quite having mastered the art of flight, they jumped in a flapping wing fall around the high grass by the trees.  As I got nearer the rooks above became louder and louder while the young dashed for cover.  One of the young ones stuck his head into a gap between some logs, as if like an ostrich, it was closing its eyes to approaching danger. I walked quietly away and let it be.

 

I have a vague memory of walking past these buildings several years back, and I think they may have been workshops or something like that, but I could be wrong.  I don’t imagine for a minute though that they’ll still be standing next time I pass by this way.  Man, or nature will have taken then down by then.

 

Before leaving I placed a Skulferatu in a knothole in the wood of the owl like building where it could keep an eye out on the young rooks dancing through the grass and the undergrowth.

 

Skulferatu #134

 

Skulferatu #134 in a knothole

 

Skulferatu #134 in a knothole

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #134

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 55.22821

Longitude -3.82229

 

what3words: robots.unloaded.slug

 

 

Skulferatu #88 - Derelict Farmhouse, Upper Bardennoch, Moniaive, Dumfries and Galloway

 

Ah, what to do on the day they are burying a long serving monarch and you don’t really fancy being stuck in the house all day watching all that pomp and ceremony?  Well, taking a lead from a kids’ TV show I remember from the Seventies ‘Why Don’t You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead?’  I did just that.  I got up off my fat backside and went out for a walk up in the hills by the village of Moniaive.

 

Stopping off in Moniaive first of all, I wandered through the rather picturesque and very quiet village.  Everything was shut and no-one was out on the street, I assume because they were all staying in and watching the funeral.  Though, maybe they were all at home busy writing, composing and painting, as Moniaive is one of these places that despite its size has attracted many musicians, authors, and artists.  The artist James Paterson, one of the ‘Glasgow Boys’ lived here, as did the author of ‘Black Narcissus’, Rumer Godden, the comic book writer, Alan Grant, and the musician Alex Kapranos.

 

In the warm, afternoon sun I walked out of the village and up a track leading through some woods and then on to a steep, grassy, and bumpy path lined by two drystane dykes.  As I walked up the hill, I could see the sky around me darkening as the rain clouds came rolling in.

 

The rolling hills outside of Moniaive

 

I made it up to the rather atmospheric ruins of Upper Bardennoch Farm where I had a staring competition with a ram who after sizing me up for a bit, wandered off and kept a wary eye on me from a safe distance.  Then the rain came down.  It poured and poured and soaked right through the cheap and nasty ‘waterproof’ jacket I was wearing.  Five minutes later the rain was gone, the sun was out again, and I was drying off nicely. 

 

The path up to Upper Bardennoch Farm

 

The derelict remains of Upper Bardennoch Farmhouse

 

The derelict remains of Upper Bardennoch Farmhouse

 

View over Upper Bardennoch Farm

 

I had a wander around the ruins of the farm, which I suppose at some time in the not too distant past had been a home and a livelihood for someone but was now abandoned and falling down.  Parts of the farmhouse roof had caved in, and the doors and windows had been removed and replaced with iron bars to keep the curious out.  The remains of the outbuildings now served as nothing more than a place for sheep to shelter from the elements, with the ground in them a sludge of sheep poo and the walls a scraped fluff with tufts of wool.

 

Tree and sheep pen

 

Gap in the wall

 

View from Upper Bardennoch over Moniaive

 

Upper Bardennoch Farmhouse

 

I left a Skulferatu in one of the many cracks in the farmhouse walls and then I carried on with my walk to the top of Bardennoch Hill, before making my way back to Moniaive.

 

Skulferatu #88

 

Skulferatu #88 in a crack in the farmhouse walls

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #88

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.206379

Longitude -3.91858

 

what3words: records.puppy.pocketed

Skulferatu #69 - Wild West Morningside, Springvalley Gardens, Edinburgh

While wandering through the refined and upmarket streets of Morningside in Edinburgh, I decided to pay a visit to a place I’d come across once, a decade or so ago.  A place hidden away in a courtyard that is reached through a narrow lane under a rather non-descript block of flats in Springvalley Gardens. A place I assumed must have fallen to the developers wrecking ball, but surprise, surprise, it was still there.

 

Lane from Springvalley Gardens to the Wild West

 

Once in the courtyard you could easily think that you had walked into the remains of an old film set from some dodgy spaghetti western, or should that be haggis western?  But no, this mock western façade was actually built in the 1990s to advertise a store called The Great American Indoors.  The business specialised in Santa Fe style furniture.  Something for which there was obviously little demand in Edinburgh, given that it closed down years ago.

 

Ed Newbey’s Grain, Horses, Livery

 

The Cantina…also the fire exit for Morningside Library

 

The Wild West Jail House

 

Faded blacksmith sign on one of the doors

 

Outside light on one of the façades

 

Faded sign for the Pueblo Pine Company

 

Now mainly derelict, which the exception of a few workshops and garages, the place has taken on the dilapidated look of a ghost town. Well, sort of, if you ignore the cars parked around the courtyard, the blocks of flats towering over you and the roar of the traffic from nearby Morningside Road.

 

View down the Wild West to a block of flats

 

One of the Wild West buildings…looking rather derelict

 

A faded sign – Knock and Wait

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my walk in a gap in the wooden posts on one of the façades. 

 

Skulferatu #69

 

Skulferatu #69 in a gap in the wooden posts

 

Skulferatu #69 in a gap in the wooden posts

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #69

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.92890

Longitude -3.210490