MY PASSION for documenting old and crumbling buildings started over a decade ago. Then, I was part of a paranormal research team, and my job was photographer and location finder. This took me to all corners of our country in search of anything that had a whisper of a haunting.
Whilst doing this, I found a property in Larne called Cairndhu House. When I first laid eyes on it, I couldn't believe something like this lay abandoned in Northern Ireland: this Gothic looking mansion overlooking the sea was like a set out of an American Horror story with its peaked roofs, wrapped verandas and balconettes. From this moment, I wanted to know more.
After a few days and tireless research, I found the owner. Turns out he was a property developer and had plans to turn the home into luxury apartments. We met and he agreed to let us investigate: not only that, he also gave me a set of keys to come and go as we pleased. I was ecstatic.
During this time I uncovered that the house had begun as a country mansion and was used as a summer residence and had belonged to Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon from Belfast. They were well known for being great entertainers and it was said that they held the most lavish parties – Princess Margaret is recorded to have had lunch here during one of her tours. What an accolade.
The Dixons were very charitable and during the war they let the house be used as a war supply depot while they moved into a smaller part of the house. Years later, they gifted the house to the Hospital Trust, and it was then used a convalescence hospital. Sadly, it closed its doors in the late 1980s due to lack of funding and has lain abandoned ever since.
It was while peeling back the layers of this house and photographing its state of raw dereliction that I found I was more interested in the history of these buildings and people who lived in them than the paranormal.
Gradually, I moved away from this and focused solely on documentation photography. Today, I post all my findings on my Facebook, Instagram and my website abandonedni.com. I get messages from followers telling me of places they own and sometimes they invite me to document their ancestral homes, which is a great privilege. I also work with architectural designers who let me come in and photograph buildings they are renovating before the work starts.
During lockdown, I was going through some old files, and I posted a cottage that I was lucky to document in Co Tyrone. The house was being demolished for a new build and I had been asked to document it as it was before this work started. The social history that we uncovered was remarkable. We uncovered Victorian-era clothing, old coins, certificates from the late 1800s and newspapers from the turn of the century. It was really something special and I will never forget the experience.
The national newspapers picked up on the post, which then went viral. On the back of that, a book agent contacted me and signed me up. We started to work on the book and a few months down the line I had a publisher, Dublin-based Merrion Press. I was delighted.
All those years ago, I never would have imagined that I would now be a published author. I'm so grateful to be able to share the history of these time capsules and talk about the lives that were once such a big part of them.
:: Visit Rebecca Brownlie online at abandonedni.com. Abandoned Ireland is out now, published by Merrion Press, available in bookshops and online. RRP £24.99.
