theonlyD800inthehameau
Photography by theonlydeadheadinthehameau
Lens-Artists Challenge: Abandoned
Posted on April 13, 2025
Here in rural France, there’s certainly no shortage of potential subjects for this week’s theme of ‘Abandoned’, whether it be old farm buildings or, as here, houses. This particular – and very small – example can be found next to the church in the nearby village of Rancon.
Cellpic Sunday: Rusty Shutter
Posted on January 27, 2025
A day late due to ‘production difficulties’ (sc. idleness and ineptitude on my part, plus my struggles with the new and ‘improved’ (ha!) WordPress UI.
Although the popular, almost romantic, image of French window shutters is pristine. brightly coloured and freshly painted volets, more prosaically they’re at least as likely to be metal and rusting. This one, on an abandoned house in the village of Rancon, is a particularly….er, ‘fine’ example.
Lens-Artists: There is a crack in everything
Posted on October 29, 2024
Look at this abandoned house on the main street of the nearby village of Rancon: the paintwork is cracked, the glass is cracked, the plaster is cracked, the wall itself is cracked…
Past Its sell-By Date
Posted on June 8, 2022
This abandoned building in the centre of the city of Cahors isn’t old enough to benefit from the preservation efforts that go into maintaining the medieval part, but is no longer modern enough to have any practical use.
Left Behind
Posted on February 14, 2021
They do things differently here in La France profonde.
If you were trying to sell your house, the chances are that you’d have it spotless, impeccably tidy and quite possibly pervaded with the smell of freshly-baked bread and perked coffee.
Here it’s quite common for everything to be just left behind, like a particularly scruffy Mary Celeste.
We didn’t buy this one…
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Junk
Posted on March 3, 2020
In the UK, the conventional wisdom is that, if you’re looking to sell your house, you make it clean and tidy; perhaps brew some fresh coffee, even bake some bread, in order to create a cosy, welcoming ambience for the prospective purchaser.
In rural France, however, as we discovered on our own house-hunting trip, it’s common practice just to pile up a load of junk and invite the viewer to use their imagination and see past it.
(We didn’t buy this one – although that isn’t to say that the one we did end up acquiring looked any better on first sight)
Monday Window – Abandoned
Posted on February 10, 2020
When we were house-hunting in France we saw quite a few of what we described as ‘Marie Celeste ‘ properties – houses that seemed to have been frozen in time as their inhabitants just upped and left.
This was one of them. I cannot remember where it was but I do know we didn’t buy it.
Thursday Doors: Chabanais – lonely and unloved
Posted on November 21, 2019
We’re still going through the fruits of my most recent doorscursion, to the Charente town of Chabanais. I’ve tried to group the images by theme each week and this time I’ve gone for the saddest, shabbiest doors I came across.
None more so than this:
There’s a small area in the town centre that’s about to see some renovation activity and is currently fenced off, so I thought I’d better record it before they go and spoil it. The flowerpot on the step adds a touch of poignancy.
More old abandoned examples:
Not so old, but not particularly cared for:
Thursday Doors 21 November 2019
We’re talking telephone numbers here…
Posted on November 1, 2019
This abandoned shop in the Scottish town of Haddington was once the go-to place for those new-fangled satellite dishes
Off The Road
Posted on December 15, 2017
This old Renault just up the road (i.e.three miles away) in the village of Saint Barbant hasn’t moved in all the five and more years that we’ve been living here in France. I think it’s been abandoned.
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