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Week #18/52: The Quietened Village’s Library Of Loss; Volume #3/4a – Light Catching Traces

Imber village-The Quietened Village-A Year In The Country-2
File Under: Trails And Influences / Year 2 wanderings
Subsection: The Quietened Village’s Library Of Loss; Volume #3/7a
Additional Subsection: Light-Catchery Traces and Recordings

Something of a wandering amongst light-catchery from/of lost homesteads…

Along with Tyneham, Imber is a deserted village that was requisitioned for conflict training.

In the 1960s and 1970s houses were built there, intended for use during such preparations.

These houses have a very simplistic appearance and design and they have been described rather aptly by the authors of Uncommonly British Days Out as being like childrens’ drawings of a house.

Connected to that, what they also make me think of is the forbidding and rather unsettling child’s-drawing-come-to-life house featured in the 1988 film Paperhouse (see here around these parts and here elsewhere in the ether).

As a nice contrast to their utilitarianism, apparently there are still the remains of a bell ringing chart to be found on the walls of a local church.

Holderness-The Quietened Village-A Year In The Country-2

In the area of Holderness, a number of villages and homes have tumbled into the sea due to coastal erosion.

This is a very literal representation of the power of such things and how they can affect day-to-day life.

Having said which, the photograph above seems nearer to something you might find in a post-apocalyptic/dystopian science-fiction film than real life and put me in mind of say a defence agencies headquarters felled by marauding other worldly invaders or perhaps, in a Planet Of The Apes-esque manner, by our own hand.

It seems too solid, too substantial to have just, well, tumbled into the waves.

Ladybower-The Quietened Village-A Year In The Country-3

There is something particularly evocative about the reappearance of submerged buildings from villages that were flooded in the building of say a reservoir when the water level falls…

…something almost mythical about the brief resurgence of these gently wraith like reminders of times, places and homes gone by, accompanied by a form of quiet resilience in the face of events.

Hampshire-Cam-Tyneham-village-telephone-box-The-Quietened-Village-A-Year-In-The-Country-3

…and returning to Tyneham, above is a public telephone box from the village.

That this still exists beggars belief.

Also, its design seems to be from some impossible previous age – to conjure up images and thoughts of previous eras’ imagined bucolic countryside bliss.

…and in a belt and braces manner, considering what happened to the village, it has a “Closed” sign hanging inside.

I feel that a question mark or two in amongst an exclamation mark could well be appropriate around now.

A few pathways and signposts:
Imber village in the ether here.
Chimes once sounded here.
Holderness light-catchery here in the ether.
The departed returns
Public telephony of Tyneham from here in the ether.

The Quietened Village audiological explorations can be found here.

 

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