More abandoned buildings

[PeterW]

Hi,

Thought I'd include my two penn'orth of abandoned buildings. Haven't got any recent ones so I dug in my neg files and found these two. They were taken probably 20-25 years ago. Probably Canon A1 or AE1, FP4 film.


In the 1960s British Railways was reorganised with huge cutbacks and many branch lines were closed. The track was taken up and the stations just locked up and left. Taken standing on what was the track, looking through a road bridge.


I was walking round the perimeter track of the old Beaulieu airfield in Hampshire one afternoon and spotted these. I knew what they were, so I found my way round the back and took this shot looking out on to the field of two groundcrew crewrooms, for the fitters, riggers, armourers, radio mechanics and so on who serviced the planes in dispersal bays dotted round the field. During the war the field was shared by RAF and US 9th Air Force. It was closed in 1950.

Peter

[John Parry]

Bet the first one's a pub now Peter,

Half the stations on our local line are now pubs - and the line's still open!

Regards - John

[kiev4a]

Peter:

Great shots. It is amazing how fast Mother Nature reclaims her territory. Of course it has been 40 years! Everytime I am boxed in on the Interstate by a dozen 18 wheelers, I wish the railroads hadn't ripped up most of their branch lines in this country.

[herron]

Peter:
These are great! But that second shot looks like something out of "The Hobbit!"

[PeterW]

SSSHHH, Ron!

Don't tell everyone. All RAF groundcrew were Hobbits. Flight Sergeants were all Gandalfs. I ought to know! ;D

Peter

[herron]

LOL! ;D

I guess it would not be too big a leap to imagine who the Orcs were!

[Randy]

Nice pics Peter. Being a train buff, I always feel sad when I see an abandoned rail line. Abandoned lines and their associated buildings along a right of way seem to always tell their story if you let them. The second picture bears an enchanting aire.

[PeterW]

Hi Randy,

I know what you mean about abandoned railway lines telling a story. That's why I took the picture.

And I'm so glad you sensed something more than just old huts in the second picture even though you probably never saw an operational airfield in the 1940s, except maybe in films.

Here, as well as trying to portray a feeling of abandonment I was hoping that maybe someone who didn't experience the war in the UK might, in their mind, be prompted to peel back the years and perhaps get just a slight sense of the atmosphere as it was then, maybe as a cold, dark winter evening came on, with the groundcrews in sleeveless leather bodywarmers coming out of the crewrooms to bed down the returning planes for the night and using torches to see to fill the fuel tanks to stop overnight condensation before a full service at an even colder 7am the next morning. The unsung heroes.

Maybe atmosphere does linger on, and can be captured in an image. If so, it makes taking pictures like these worthwhile. (The song is ended, but the melody lingers on ...)

Well, I did say I was just an old Romantic!

Peter