202604 · PATINA
Yellow Barriers
Mendip Hills, Somerset
The A-road toward Cheddar Gorge held a burnt caravan. I passed it first — yellow barriers, traffic cones, the wreckage registering as I drove by. But something about it arrested me, and a mile or so further, I circled back. The metal skeleton was exposed: composite panels charred to black, walls rust-streaked, belongings scattered inside as if abandoned mid-moment. The caravan sat at the boundary between the Mendips proper and the industrial detritus beyond it.
I wasn't planning to photograph a caravan fire. But standing there at the barriers, I could see the patterns spreading outward from this one loss. There was distance between the wreckage and the rest — but it was readable as the start of something.
Moving away from the barriers, into the landscape that surrounded it, I documented what lay further out. Abandoned trailers buried in branches. Fuel pumps corroded by decades of weather. Asbestos panels stacked in an overgrown lot, their surfaces moss-thick. Industrial buildings half-occupied and slowly surrendering — one modern white-rendered structure beside a building that had already given up. The landscape beyond Cheddar Gorge isn't romantic. It's the place where function has drained away and what remains is left to weather.
The series moves between two scales of dereliction. The caravan is crisis — a sudden loss, contained, dated by fire marks. Everything else is slower: the moss that takes decades, the rust that spreads imperceptibly, vegetation reclaiming what was left behind. Both are abandonment, but they operate on different timescales. One gets yellow barriers. The other gets weather and time.
Yellow barriers mark the crisis. Moss marks time.
Cheddar Gorge — 202604
What struck me was how much that burnt caravan revealed about the place. Its crisis made the surrounding entropy visible. Yellow barriers acknowledge one kind of loss. The asbestos panels weathered unnoticed. The trailers disappeared into overgrowth. Official and forgotten, side by side.
By the end of the shoot, I wasn't thinking about Cheddar Gorge. The gorge was the excuse; the dereliction was the story. The burnt caravan opened the door to it.
Burnt interior of a caravan with charred remains and abandoned personal items visible
Charred caravan structure with bright yellow caution barrier blocking access, field and road beyond
Fire-ravaged caravan compartment with rust-streaked walls and abandoned belongings scattered inside
Caravan parked on a narrow country road beside overgrown bushes, black and white
Interior view through burnt caravan doorway showing blackened metal frame and overgrown grassland
Severely fire-damaged caravan interior showing blackened metal frame and debris
Interior of incinerated caravan with metal frame windows framing pastoral landscape beyond
Fire-damaged caravan with yellow safety barrier and traffic cone at roadside
Corroded roadside fuel pumps covered in rust and age, covered parking structure beyond
Abandoned white agricultural trailer overgrown with branches and vegetation, black and white
Moss-covered, decaying asbestos roof panels stacked in overgrown lot
White flowers in grass below heavy black metal machinery or equipment shadow, black and white
Modern white-rendered industrial building with corrugated shutter doors beside derelict structure
Industrial compound with painted shutter and weathered buildings among bare trees
Derelict structure and overgrown industrial area with reflective puddles, black and white