Graeme's PhotoBlog from Fife, Scotland

Today's Blog is a bit of an essay, although the picture is of Bayview Cottage, Benbecula. It could equally be a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie! The following background and linked story will explain my reasons for showing this 'snap' today.

I have holidayed in the Uists for 19 years; it is a beautiful place and calls me back year after year. Bayview Cottage is on the west coast of Benbecula on the northern edge of a bay called ‘Poll na Crann’, known locally as ‘stinky bay’ because of the smell from rotting Kelp blown by wind and tide from the neighbouring Monach Islands (Heisker). I had always viewed this empty cottage with interest because of it’s smelly location. During the terrible storm of January 2005, much of the west coast of the Uists was subject to terrible erosion and there were terrible human costs too.

The garden of Bayview Cottage was gouged away by the sea. The hole was subsequently filled with boulders. You can see in the picture the line of the original front garden fence which suddenly cuts back at 45 degrees past the area eroded. The house was on the market and advertisied for reducing amounts. Having seen the house, I wondered who would throw money away on a property which could well be swallowed up by the sea. Then, surprisingly, the property was taken off the market and had been sold. My friend Sylvia and I were holidaying in the Uists in the week of 19th June 2006 and were intrigued to find it still empty, although the boulders had been put in the erosion hole and a new path to the house had been laid. Then during the week we noticed a removal van there for a number of days. The new owner was moving in? I visited the Islands again last week (Aug 14th 2006) and found the property empty, grass overgrowing the paths and as the picture shows, taken over, very eerily, by starlings. I told Sylvia about the latest update on Bayview and with the power of Google, she came up with the sad story linked below. Is it not wrong and criminal in 21st Century Scotland that such a situation should be allowed to happen? Surely the Reverend must look deep into his prayer book and know his final destiny for fraudulently selling a property unseen as habitable? It was clear to anyone seeing it that this property was far from habitable.

Read Shawneena's Story here.