tentsmuir gothic

a beach in Scotland on a cold misty day in March

has the benefit of almost having it to yourselves.

Tentsmuir was once a heathery moor, marsh and vast beach between the estuaries of the Tay and the Eden

it was infested with rabbits which dug up amazing amounts of Mesolithic microflint industry remains which then could be found on the surface, and archaeologists have found kitchen middens with auroch bones as well as red deer, wild pig and many different kinds of fish,  barbed bone harpoons, jet jewellery, also bronze age pottery. once this place was not so wild and isolated. more recently it was the haunt of smugglers.

after the second world war the RAF and the American air force moved into nearby Leuchars, and  the forestry commission planted pines on the moor and the dunes.

now it is dog walker’s paradise and a place where children can run wild

with newly built car park and adventure playground

but that morning it had reverted

to its wild and lonely original self, stranded between sea and mud and wilderness, where the denouement to a Gothic novel could well be imagined.