TRE-FYNYDD, Burry Port 2020

TRE-FYNYDD, Burry Port 2020 - CARMARTHENSHIRE
Notes on TRE-FYNYDD, Burry Port 2020

I parked in a lay-by beside the ruined house of Bigyn on the the mountain road between Pembrey and Pen-y-Mynydd. Bigyn is so overgrown it didn’t seem possible to photograph, so I didn’t bother. It had forecast to be dry but fine drizzle blew around and then would stop for awhile and then sudden downfalls of heavy rain for a few minutes. The pattern continued. I walked down the public footpath nearly as far as the farm Ty Newydd but then cut across a stream and a field of young trees and a lot of bramble. A tractor lay in this field and obviously hadn’t moved for at least ten years. More brambles. There was an easier route but a sign said ‘trespassers would be prosecuted’. The brambles were higher than me and irregular how they fell. Some were brown and old but their barbs still sharp. Only once home did I begin pulling out the little sharp needle from fingers and feet! My hands were bleeding and there and sore. Poor me!

The house was reached, partially roofed, unlike so many of the farms I visit. Inside was a mess, fallen beams, fallen floors and a fallen staircase. There was no access upstairs and barely access around the lower rooms. The sky was dark outside and even my digital camera struggled with handheld shots inside the house. A few snapshots were taken, slight camera blur and then I used my large wooden camera for more serious work, tripod mounted of course. Exposures of 4 – 32 seconds were used (at F22), long for a mid-day exposure, and testifies just how dim the light was. Another band of rain was heading in. I took as many pictures as possible and packed up my camera – somewhat depressed by the weather, the house, the afternoon. The rain fell on the filter of the lens, I removed the filter and tried to clean/dry it but I had nothing to clean it with except my t-shirt. I dropped the filter into mud. Nevermind. I’ll clean it when home. Rain fell onto the glass of the lens. I tried the best to wipe it with my sleeve but it just smudged the rain water around. The finished images may be slightly blurred where the rain landed on the lens. So be it. It tells part of the story. I walked back a different way, across a field and over a hedge, I hasten to add the fence I stepped over was only three feet high, no damage done and then back to the public footpath and back to the car by which time the rain had begun to fall hard again.

Once home everything taken from the camera bag and placed on a table by a radiator. It gets an hour to dry and air before being put away again. The lens was properly cleaned and is pristine again. The small barbs of bramble are removed, two on the soles of my feet and numerous on my fingers and knuckles. The brambles are the worst. I had to turn back at one point because I found myself in a whole sea of bramble and knew to carry on would only take longer than going back and to find a different route – which I did and saved myself some time and effort. I could have done without the trouble with the bramble, it lengthened the time to reach the house which meant I would have missed the rain storm which would have allowed me to settle more within the atmosphere of the house and landscape. The pictures won’t tell this. The pictures will just show a dilapidated house with a few raindrops present in the final image. Neither will the final images show or give any insight on who lived here last and why they left.

TRE-FYNYDD, Burry Port 2020

Comments

Photo comment By Gwen Williams: I was one of the last to live there. I left to get married in 1979. The rest of the family left in 1983/84 no one moved in after them
Photo comment By Martha Sauro,Tynewydd and Trefynydd Far: Just because you did not go through the gate that said do not trespass it dose not mean that you did not trespass going through another mans field through a hedge and to the building,once you where on my land you did trespass, i hope you do not do this on other property's ,as they are not yours to photograph, your lucky that the old building didn't fall on you and nobody would know where you where ,and that livestock didn't attack you (BULLSA and cows and calves) when you where trespassing on farmers land. That's why you shouldn't trespass and their was a sign on my gate because you have no right to roam on the land i farm and endanger my livestock and yourself .

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