There’s something thoroughly chilling about an island which is also a natural “graveyard” – especially when the washed-up articles include human remains! The Punuk Islands include three small islets located east of St Lawrence Island. The strong currents of the Bering Sea have transported all sorts of debris there – including bones, hence the eerie nickname.

As seen in this earlier post, there are numerous reasons why settlements become deserted and are reduced to ghost towns. Depletion of natural resources, surplus industry and lawlessness have all contributed to settlers uprooting themselves and their families and moving on. But sometimes disasters on an unprecedented scale can lead to larger urban areas – even whole cities – being abandoned.

The abandoned village of Ukivok clings precariously to the edge of a cliff in one of the most bleak and inhospitable corners of the world.

The Peak District in Northern England is an ancient landscape steeped in myth and legend, none more enduring than that of Robin Hood. Robin’s friend Little John appears alongside him in early accounts dating from 1420 to 1440, and a headstone in Hathersage churchyard is even marked with his name.

For those who enjoyed the article several days ago about the former RAF base at Binbrook and the associated mystery that surrounds it, here are some photographs of the disused base, taken yesterday!  While the base is now a trading estate, most of the buildings remain intact and in a state of utter disrepair.  Small [...]

Since its closure in 1978, the General Cemetery in Sheffield has become a tangled exhibition of plants and undergrowth. The classically influenced buildings have long since been bricked up and fallen into disrepair, while the tombstones of Sheffield’s Victorian luminaries disappear into the undergrowth. Ironically, the final resting place of 87,000 people has become a tranquil haven where plant and animal life blossoms unhindered.

Just over twenty years ago, RAF Binbrook was a front line fighter base, tasked with protecting the northern approaches of Britain against the Soviet Union.  Today, the station is largely derelict except for several hangars which form part of a trading estate.  The “married quarters” have been reclaimed by the council and turned into a [...]

The United Kingdom (and elsewhere, especially within Europe) is littered with deserted air bases, hangovers from when the continent was embroiled in war. Most surviving airfields were built as heavy bomber bases during World War Two, and linger on due to their sheer size and scale, usually with three large concrete runways that are often still visible.

This former prison must be one of the most imaginative British hotel conversions – and certainly the first to be developed from Her Majesty’s Pleasure! Oxford Castle, now a Malmaison, was originally built as a Norman fortress in 1071, during the reign of William the Conqueror.

The RMS Titanic is without doubt the most famous ocean liner in history and everyone knows how the story ends in 1912 – at the bottom of the North Atlantic, several hundred nautical miles southeast of Newfoundland. But few know the story of the Olympic class liner’s birth, or that the Titanic began life on the rather sorry looking concrete slipway, pictured above, in a Belfast shipyard.

Brutalist architecture gained momentum in the United Kingdom from 1950s to the mid 1970s, emerging from the modernist architectural movement. The English architects Alison and Peter Smithson coined the term in 1954, from the French béton brut, or “raw concrete”.

Sand sculpture is an art which dates back thousands of years. In modern times, it is a popular form of entertainment on beaches across the world, with both children and adults participating. Examples range from simple sand castles to complex sculptures. Some schools of thought suggest sand sculpting was the first form of communication used by ancient man before the development of formal language, and may even predate the cave painting as a form of artistic expression.

There’s something fascinating about abandoned cinemas, built to thrill large audiences, but left silent and forgotten. Many were demolished after the advent of television and some adapted for other uses. The most fascinating are those that linger on intact behind locked doors, frozen in the margins of existence.

Take a wander through the more artistic areas of many major cities and you’ll soon discover spray paint art (also known as Aerosolgrafia or Sadotgrafia).  Lurking beneath this relatively generic sounding title, and differing considerably to graffiti which appears on the sides of buildings, Aerosolgrafia takes the viewer on a surreal and mind-bending journey.