In Ruins: Abandoned Houses in Carmyle

As promised I give you the next instalment of the In Ruins series, if you have not read the previous entry click here.

The weather has been God awful this past month so I have finally resigned myself to go out with the bike in the rain. The alternative is to stay home playing videogames all day and this gets pretty boring eventually. I had heard about a ruined castle called Bothwell Castle and had been told it is eminently climbable, so much so that there are no "no climbing" sings. The castle is on the banks of the river Clyde about 25 km to the east of Glasgow. I'd had it on my mind for a while that this would be my next destination as I have never very far to the east following the Clyde. 

I checked the weather for the forecast and it predicted rain for the day, and for every other day in the conceivable future, so I thought "f*** it". I packed my water proofs into my backpack and on I went. After about half an hour I was that I'd ever been before in this direction and I wasn't overly impressed. There was a cycle path which is always good but the scenery was largely industrial and not in a good way (i.e. abandoned factories with open doors).

After a while I came across a bridge and I appropriately ignored the sign telling me to cross it if I wanted to stay on the cycle path. This ended up being both a great decision and a pretty annoying decision. As I kept going on the non-cycle path bordering the north bank of the river I reached Carmyle. A classic instance of the Scottish grey village built in the 60s, I don;t mean to offend any of the residents but the place is not particularly nice, at all. That is until I got into the local park and to my surprise I find this right in front of me

This got the explorer in me very exited, not only is it ruins, but it looks pretty old, like 100 years old perhaps. I had to dismount and investigate further.

Very cool, love the composition of the three arches.

What is through this gate?

Great stone work, much nicer than the grey concrete houses of Carmyle.

The towering chimney

Chimney at ground level

I really like the use of Roman style archways, works really well with encroaching vegetation

Shadowfax resting while I explore.

That was all the same building, but it turns out there where lots more! This one here is completely different, must have been added much later than the previous one and is built a lot more precariously.

Someone was reading a newspaper here

The cabin in the woods

This house was clearly not built to last

Then again this one was and look at it now.

Why are there always lots and lots of tyres in places like this?

A yellow tarp amongst the ruins

Remains of  an oven or chimney?

Ruins in the forest

Detail of carved stone

I really don't know what this place was. I have researched Carmyle on the net and I found nothing. What remains of the buildings suggests that people lived here. They don't look  like warehouses. The site is also curiously situated right next to a major motorway.

Here is a bird's eye view of the site courtesy of Google Earth. You can see there are remains of at least five or six buildings.

As great as it was finding this place I could go no further so I had to turn back. This also proved to be great because I casually stumbled in a most excellent if muddy mountain bike path.

After having some fun and getting my bike covered in mud y backtracked and found my way to Bothwell Castle through busy main roads. Which was slightly annoying. But at last I reached the Castle! Unfortunately my phone had run out of battery at this point so I couldn't take any pictures. Lucky for us the internet can provide.

As I was told the castle is eminently climbable, its also pretty dangerous so I had to resist the temptation. It was also closed so I only got to see the outside. Tried to sneak in somehow but its only possible if you climb up to about 10-15 meters, which I don't feel ready to do without a rope and harness.
For the way back I located a cycle path that ended up being the proper way to go; the path I ignored when I chose not to cross the bridge earlier. I ended up reaching Glasgow quite by chance since I couldn't rely on my phone's GPS. The rain was pretty minimal throughout but it did end up pouring quite badly towards the end. Either way I learned that rain is no excuse for not doing outdoor activities. In fact if you don't deal with it in this country you may as well stay indoor forever.