While touring Scotland in the summer of 2019, I stopped to photograph a rather photogenic old stone bridge. Unfortunately, by the time I got my camera and tripod ready, two other people had arrived on the scene. They took their time slowly wandering around behind the bridge, so I had to wait until they finally moved on before I could get the shots that I wanted.

I noticed some old stone buildings a few hundred metres away, behind a clump of trees, and hiked over to take a look. I found the ruins of a two-storey house, and the remains of some outbuildings nearby. Naturally I spent some time exploring and photographing the place.

Not much was left of the outbuildings, and they were mostly filled with nettles, which prevented me from entering.

Half of the house's front door was missing, and one ground floor window was now just a large hole in the wall. A staircase behind the front door ran up the centre of the house to the second storey. Someone had placed some steel fencing across the openings to dissuade people from entering, but I could have easily climbed over these token obstacles to explore the interior. A more serious problem was that the house no longer had much in the way of an interior to explore. The floors on either side of the staircase had collapsed into the rooms below. Even if I had trusted the stairs to bear my weight, which I didn't, there would have been nowhere to go. I had to content myself with a few shots taken through the door and window.

Walking around to the back of the house, I noticed some screw jacks supporting a sagging lintel. Apparently someone once cared enough about the house to try to prevent, or at least delay, its collapse.

After I'd had a look around the house, I went for a stroll along a nearby path, and ended up climbing the hill above. I was rewarded by a good view of the surrounding countryside, but unfortunately the overcast, slightly hazy conditions weren't conducive to good landscape photography.