Where The Night Rooks Go

Philip G Horey

I have spent most of my life as a commercial diver and photographer, my latest book has been 17yrs in the making. The title comes from a Thomas Hardy poem called ‘The Haunter’, which is reproduced in its entirety at the begging of the book. This poem I feel captures the essence of my photographic approach. It is other-worldly, sometimes melancholic, sometimes chilling and ghostly but with awe and wonder in equal measure. Working on this book has been a slow organic process, the antithesis of today’s instant digital world of Instagram and Facebook. I believe it has produced pictures with ’soul’ rather than that of CGI imagery with Photoshop precision. What started out as a bit of a fun project with my then young son soon turned into a journey. An odyssey of exploration on many levels charting advancing years, discovery, philosophical / spiritual and photographic development

There are over 100 images shot mainly on Black and white 35mm film and the odd splash of colour, all with varying degrees of wonderful atmospheric grain. But this is not just a photography book. 50,000 words of text accompany the 22 chapters and each essay describes the locations, the history and actual story of the hauntings, along with personal observations and experiences from each location shoot. It also has an occasional poem to compliment certain chapters both borrowed and my own.

The aim is to give a more 3D image of each location and haunting legend, models have been subtly used and the text gives background to bring the images to ‘life’. The inspirations for the work were Simon Marsden’s ‘Haunted Realm’ a collection of infra pictures of old haunted castles /mansions and the Readers Digest book of ‘ Folklore, Myths and legends of Great Britain’ a big dusty tome of a book collectable now along with Marsden’s works. The locations for my chapters stretch from the Shetland Islands in the far north to the most southerly headland of Britain the dreaded Lizard peninsular and the ‘Man ‘O’ War rocks. Along the way we visit the majestic Loch Ness and beautiful unspoilt English /Scottish border country rich in both ballad and history. We encounter ghosts, serpents, folklore heroes and even mermaids!

CONTENTS

Introduction

Glengorm Castle

The Ghosts of Hermitage Castle

Sandwood Bay

Corsewall Lighthouse

Blanchland

Chillingham Castle

Buckholm Tower

Loch Ness

Culloden

Bamburgh Castle and the Farne Islands

The Cloutie Tree

Bomber County

The Warkworth Hermit

Pistole Meadow

The Mermaid of Zennor

The Haunted Bed

Castle Menzies

Windhouse

Dunstanburgh Castle

Revenants

King Arthur

Milecastle 42

Acknowledgments

£30.00