It’s very obvious that I love an abandoned house…. they are what I enjoy photographing the most, and I’ll actively seek them out sometimes, but the best ones are the ones stumbled upon accidentally. This cottage and farmhouse were the latter, found in a glen that we’ve since been back to many times, following different paths hoping to find more.

I shared some photos of these houses online, with lots of comments coming in along the lines of how sad it is to see, how heartbreaking, once a home, the stories they could tell etc etc. Honestly, that’s not my thought process when I see these derelict homes. Maybe I’m not so romantically inclined, as it seems like more of a simple realistic statement that these houses were maybe just a little too run down, a little too remote, a little too difficult to live in. I’m sure there’s many more boring, everyday reasons (estate management, rural employment) why a lot of these houses are left.

I imagine the people who lived in them were just normal folk, living normal lives, and eventually circumstances made them move on. I agree it’s sad, but I’m also glad that there’s so many of these houses stood standing and we can still see how the building once looked. I find it interesting to see how nature is taking over when there’s no resident to maintain it.

I might not be one for romanticising the backstory of these places, but I do try and read up about some of them and learn a little bit of history here and there, to understand why there’s so many of these houses scattered around the highlands and the cairngorms, and it does seem that a lot of these houses could absolutely be saved, restored, and brought back to life as beautiful rural homes. As always though, it seems there are a lot of hoops that would have to be jumped through.