Remnants of an Exodus

Carsethorn is a pretty hamlet perched on the northern banks of the Solway Firth some 12 miles south of Dumfries. During a recent stay there I was intrigued by a series of stark old timbers jutting out of the grey estuarine silt.

A little research revealed that Carsethorn was once a thriving port of which these timbers are all that remain.

First established in the 16th Century as a port for Dumfries, by the mid 19thCentury it had become a major point of emigration for Southern Scotland. It is estimated that some 20,000 people left here for better lives in the New World, most never to return.

To me this context renders these scant remains almost unbearably poignant. Photographically, these stumps of rotten wood suggested the start of a series of which the first 6 images here are a beginning.

Scotland has experienced successive waves of emigration throughout its history, from the Highland Clearances to repeated periods of grinding poverty from which folk sought to escape to a better life.

These events have left their mark on the landscape and, indirectly, its people and it is this that I seek to document over the coming months and years.