Ghosting the Castle: the case of (re)landscaping in a Northern place

Abstract

My contribution reflects on a recent project Ghosting the Castle, 2017, commissioned by and produced in collaboration with Timespan, a museum and archive based in Helmsdale, a village on the North-East coast of Scotland. The focus of this project was on the layered histories and issues related to Helmsdale’s medieval castle and the A9 bridge which replaced it. Archival photographs and other types of illustrations played significant roles in the narratives told to me by local people on location. The photographs, largely (but not exclusively) ‘vernacular’ in character, were located in the archives of Timespan, National Records of Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland in addition to personal albums. Images of the ruined castle appeared in watercolours, photographic postcards, family ‘snaps’, and pictorial landscape photographs. Its subsequent demolition in 1970 was captured not by press photographers, but by ‘amateurs’ in 35mm Kodachrome slides and cine film. Major coast-line landscaping work undertaken as part of the new bridge construction, and the progress of the bridge itself, was documented through monochrome aerial and structural engineering photography. My talk will consider how these varying modes of visual representation, which feature photography in its widest sense, prompted memories and knowledge of the site, as well as raising critical questions. For example, both the castle and the bridge have ambiguous roles as identity markers, even for a generation who have no direct memory of the castle. Today the location of the castle is signified in Helmsdale by a large stone and a plaque although the creation of the new bridge and significant re-landscaping of the cliff area, means it is difficult for today’s visitor to get a sense of the castle’s scale and actual location. Photographs therefore triggered divergent community memories and viewpoints. For some, change was inevitable due to, on the one side, structural impact of transporting large industrial parts to Dounreay Power station (now itself decommissioned) through the village while, on the other side, dramatic coastal erosion. For others, there remain lingering questions from whether the castle could have been saved to how the new A9 bridge fundamentally changed the rhythm of village life. Through this particular site and depictions of change, I will reflect on how ‘landscape’ photographs in the broadest sense, belonging to the recent past, come to make uncanny connections with present-day concerns about heritage, conservation, erosion and community sustainability.