I flipping love a good ruin, don't you? I also love hiking and film photography - if you like those things too then today's blog will be right up your street, or path or moorland, whatever - you're in the right place!

Raistrick Greave is an ancient derelict farmhouse atop Heptonstall Moor in West Yorkshire - these photos were taken on a walk in 2017 but the roll of film has been languishing in the fridge since then (i keep film in the fridge - it's a thing, honest) but no longer, the images have been awoken from their icy slumber to tell the tale of the haunted ruins of... RAISTRICK GREAVE!!! (que thunder sound effects and scary music)!

Not only do I love a good ruin but I flipping love an open moorland too, the seemingly endless expanse of sky and undulating sea of grass - I can't resist the urge to stick my walking boots on and head for the horizon, which sounds like a really polite way of telling someone to bugger off doesn't it?! These photos were taken on one of my all to infrequent jaunts out into the wilds, on this occasion accompanied by my mate Dom who had discovered the ruined farm house on a previous walk and suggested we take a look.

On the approach to the site the first traces of human occupation appear - the remains of rough stone walls sunken into the ground tracing the boundary of what must have once been grazing or even farm land but is now very definitely open moor - this just adds to the sense of dereliction and dissaray.

It is difficult to obtain much detail about the history of the place except for it's name Rasitrick Greave and that it was (obviously) a farm house - when I say difficult to obtain I don't mean that the information is hidden away behind myriad booby traps in an Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom kind of way, just that having spent, ooh... litreally minutes on google I couldn't find anything - anyway myself and my esteemed Colleague Mr. Dominic Ranson Esq reckoned it to be 17th Century ish and that's good enough for me - alternative suggestions are welcomed!

Looking back at the photos now It's difficult not to get into a reflective mood -  this was once a home, build to withstand the elements and provide shelter and warmth, a place to live! People lived here, the buildings were... alive....host to all the mundanities of daily life, the hustle and bustle, the highs and lows, the births and the deaths....but now fallen silent, deprived of the one thing that brought them meaning - life! Home now only to the wind whistling through the cracks in the wall

I wonder how many people sat around that hearth warming themselves by the fire after a hard days work in the fields,how many times did they sit at the window and take in the views, what were there hopes, dreams and aspirations? All that's left are these tumbledown stones, monuments to forlorn hope. I wonder if in a few hundred years enough will remain of my own home for some itinerant soul to ponder....

I'm feeling far too reflective to bang on about the film gear used to create these images suffice it to say that they were shot on Rollei Retro 80S on my trusty Olympus OM2n and developed in Adonal which has once again prove itself to be a great means of creating images with contrast, depth and sharpness.