Apart from the forces of nature, most of this island presents itself as adapted by mankind to suit its needs of the times.

I studied the aspects of our intervention and shaping of the landscape for my degree but on a short trip up to North Yorkshire to the spawning grounds of the great industrial north evidence was everywhere of our footprint.

The imprint, whether by Cistercian monks, farmers, shepherds, civil engineering, the railways etc. It was all here to see in various states of degradation.

I had chosen to drive over to Buttertubs as said earlier in this blog. Dry stone walls embraced the landscape with a smattering of sheep. The fells were very dry indeed but Autumn was less advanced up there than it it was in East Anglia. Possibly the cooler climate has something to do with that. I marvelled at an observation Mrs O made on a foray up some C type roads earlier in the stay that road laying machines had to get up the rather steep inclines to allow us to be up there. I had crested the summit of this pass and pulled up to take in the view. Possibly the reason for doing this was the sight of the obvious railway carriage, or more likely the the gate on the left reminding me of Keith Arnatt’s A.O.N.B that spawned my Edgelands project. My ex-neighbour would no doubt be able to tell what railway company ran this van and when it was built. Much of the industrial north depended upon the burgeoning railways to move goods around but as that infrastructure declined through lack of use or investment many such vans as these found secondary uses as chicken sheds, caravans, or as in this case a sheltered pen possibly for lambing.

In my earlier post I had talked about stopping to eat my Fat Rascal and chocolate. These two images show what a difference digestion makes.

These simple structures of the 19th century are quite humble compared to remains of Fountains Abbey and I doubt they will stand the ravages of time as that has (even with intervention).

All of these images were made using Kodak Portra 160 in the Fuji GW670III. The colour images are fine but the conversion to Black and White adds a degree of abstraction that lends itself to the structures and shapes in the landscape.