The ruined croft

Harris, day five

On our last full day, we drove north to the adjoining island of Lewis. Both Harris and Lewis are dotted with abandoned crofts, left either as a result of depopulation or perhaps simply because the original residents moved into newer accommodation. Many of them are too dangerous and dilapidated to venture too close, but we did find one at Arivruaich that you could walk down to.

A once substantial dwelling, it was set in a small hamlet with a few other houses and a postbox. One wonders if the inhabitants mind the view of a decaying cottage?


For photographers, it was, of course, a dream location, with a sea loch behind and lots of details: sagging outhouses with rusty corrugated iron roofs...

... rotten window frames with sad fragments of lace curtains that must once have been chosen with pride...

... the decaying remains of a bathroom, the bath and sanitary ware still in situ, although the ceiling was caving in, the walls were bare and the floor was dangerously rotten...

... and of course, when man leaves, nature rushes in so that wild plants were recolonising the boggy ground.