Leaving the jeep on the west side of Quaker Bridge, I walked over to inspect the structure and poke around the other side, carrying a Canon 5d Mark IV (camera body) / EF 70 – 300 mm f/4-5.6 L IMS (lens), shooting as I walked. My sister Theresa and Maxie, a little white dog, lagged behind taking in the surroundings. Here they are, in shadow, on the west side.
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My work on the east side was shared in previous posts, “Pinelands Connections VIII,”I and II “Around Quaker Bridge,” and I and II “Pitch Pine Forest,” work interrupted by the sound of an approaching engine, a Humvee came into view. I waved my arm up and down, a sign to slow down, pulling alongside the driver looked up with dead eyes, no element of recognition of a fellow human, as I explained my sister was on the bridge. A stink of unfamiliar hydrocarbons, diesel fuel?, rose through the heat as they pulled forward with no acknowledgement of my request. Thankfully they slowed down as Theresa, Max in her arms, said, “hi.”
Multiple roads converge from all directions on Quaker Bridge, using GoogleMaps (surprising these unimproved, “jeep” sand roads were listed) I chose Goodwater Road as a route to Batsto Village, on the southern side of Wharton State Forest. The 6.1 mile road follows the east bank of Mullica River at a distance, a very rough passage through ancient Pitch Pine forest. Here are photographs of the enormous capacity of the pines to regrow after fire. Note a thick seeding growth among the mature pine trunks, lower portions fire blackened.
Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
In three, so far, postings on the cottage ruins at Loughan an Lochan (Loughan Bay) we explored a former community above the Irish Sea with a view of Scotland. For the third posting I shared some research on the last cottage people of that site with the intent of additional postings.
I wondered, “What motivates you to do this?” and remembered my mother’s Canadian passport in which, for place of birth “Proleek, Ireland” was written and my request to our cousin, John Mills, who invited us to stay with them after my mother passed away, June, 2013, the request being to visit the site of great grandfather James McCardle’s home, where grandfather Peter McCardle was raised, information since discovered from the Irish census.
On the morning of Sunday, May 25, John took us from mass on a tour of sites related to the family. One of these was the site of the McCardle home, Proleek Townland.
The ruins of the former home of Peter McArdle are on a corner of unnamed streets in Proleek, County Louth. This is a view of the southwest side.
There site is an anonymous corner on a unnamed street with no outlet. The street ends close to the Proleek Dolmen, an ancient passage tomb, after passing farms and fields.
The interior of the property. I see no evidence of great grandfather James McArdle’s home, It has returned to the earth.
The 1901 Irish Census provides these details from 116 years ago:
The walls were stone, brick or concrete.
The roof of thatch, wood or another perishable material.
Two rooms, with three windows facing the road.
Out buildings listed were:
cow house.
piggery.
Today, the site is another person’s property, it was not possible to explore further than when the camera lens reached when I leaned as far a possible into the brush. No sign of standing walls.
Across the road from the McArdle Plot is this ditch (stone wall) and a home. In the far distance, just visible across the plain, rising from it, is an unnamed land mark, a rounded hill 350 feet tall of the neighboring townland of Bellurgan.
Modern homes surround the corner, solid and prosperous.
The site is surrounded by homes on the west and south, farmland on the east and west.
For this posting I collected the following images from Google Earth. The site is marked with a pushpin, “McCardle Home.” A “Proleek Dolmen” pushpin marks the passage tomb.
A closer view suggests, if we trespassed and poked around, some remains of the structure were concealed by the trees and brush.
Between May 2014 and this image, from 2015, the center of the plot was gouged out. The area corresponds to the corresponds to the remains indicated in the 2013 image. From this we can understand were the structures stood in relation to the road.
Using the polygon ruler tool the size of the site is 413 feet in circumference, 9,619 square feet, and the gouge, indicating the ruins, is 1,368 square feet.
But for John and Betty Mills, their kind invitation to stay and John’s guidance that day, the “Proleek” notation on my mother’s Canadian passport would still be a mystery today.
John Mills passed away the next year, September 26, 2015. Here are Hawthorne Blossoms from the corner of the former McCardle home in memory.
These are photographs from my Superstition Wilderness postings.
Taken early April, Reavis Ranch, Superstition Wilderness.Remnant of a twentieth century orchard, a dream husbanded using a perennial water source.Disused hayrake, Reavis Ranch, Superstition WildernessSuperstition Wilderness, Reavis Ranch, February, 2006From the slopes of Mound Mountain in the remote eastern Superstition Wilderness. View West-Northwest across the southern Reavis Valley (Reavis Ranch). Pinion Pine and Manzanite in the foreground.“The Searcher’s” horse, Nugget feating on early spring grass among the apple trees of Reavis Ranch.Northeast view across the site and the Reavis Valley.“The Searcher’s” horse, Nugget feating on early spring grass among the apple trees of Reavis Ranch.Colorado on the alert while Nugget grazes, typical of their personalities.Looking from the former house site towards the Arizona Trail running beneath the distant red rock ridge. Not the fence rails on the left and apple trees in bloom.Mike Wills at his Pine Creek Camp, April 2005.the kitchen: can of fuel, a light burner and dehydrated food. A metal cup and a spork.Looking east toward backpack, center, with unpacked supplies and tent. Tripod at rear.I climbed a large, lichen encrusted boulder for this view of the tent and equipment. Looking south.
The following year my sister Diane and I did two expeditions into the Superstitions, March and November 2006.
View of a saddle of the ridge to the west over Pine Creek. It is possible to climb over this ridge for a view of Reavis Falls. It is a day-trip bushwack from Pine Creek.View to the southwest on the Arizona Trail above Pine Creek.Pine Creek of the remote eastern Superstition Wilderness hosts this wild Tufted Evening Primrose.From a vantage point overlooking Reavis Gap tot he north. This is the view of Pine Creek, to the south.The Arizona Trail passes this spot in the remote eastern Superstition Wilderness. This is the view of my path up from Nameless Canyon. In the distance is the Four Peaks Wilderness Area.Superstition Wilderness, Arizona
“A This video is from the November backpack, taken from the hill above the Ranch Ruin (Click me for “A Ride to Reavis Ranch”) you will experience the peace of this wilderness valley.
Although cold, the still dry air felt marvelous and even distant objects appeared absolutely clear. In this environment the spread of sun with its rising is a ritual. Here’s a photograph of the canyon walls a few minutes before the sun reached them.. Superstition Wilderness, ArizonaView from the western slope of Two Bar Mountain looking west toward Reavis Ranch Trail. Reavis Falls is in canyon on the far side of this ridge.Although cold, the still dry air felt marvelous and even distant objects appeared absolutely clear. In this environment the spread of sun with its rising is a ritual. Here’s a photograph of the canyon walls a few minutes after the sun reached them.. Superstition Wilderness, ArizonaSuperstition Wilderness, ArizonaView from the western slope of Two Bar Mountain looking west toward Reavis Ranch Trail. Castle Dome is behind the ridge on right.Fully mature agave surrounded by years of dried leaves against ddawn light in Pine Creen Canyon, Superstition Wilderness, Arizona.
In this Part 03, some contemporaneous people are introduced, more information on the environment provided, some previous residents named and imagined.
On the way to Torr Head we stopped at this spot in Coolranny Townland to take in this view of the Irish Sea. The land overlooks Loughan Bay toward the Mull of Kintyre and Sanda Island, Scotland. County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Coolranny borders Loughan Townland on the east.
To understand the full beauty of a place, it is necessary to live it, to experience the seasons, approach the land from different aspects; pass the same place many time, noticing overlooked features, enjoying old favorites. We did our best in this single day and took the exploration of this Antrim County coast slow, savoring all the views we noticed as this is a once in a lifetime experience. Imagine our amazement to find Scotland so close at hand. In the past, on a fine day the trip across the North Channel, up eastern Kintyre peninsula shores to Campbeltown at the head of Campbeltown Loch, was easier than a land crossing to a closer town.
I picked Campbeltown because my great great grandfather, a sea captain, emigrated from Scotland to County Louth where my great grandmother, Anne Campbell, married John Mills. In this way Captain Campbell escaped persecution for his Roman Catholic faith.
Late in her life, Anne Mills posed for this portrait. I can tell great grandmother Mills is facing north from these clues:
— the press of the eternal east wind on her dress, against her left left and flowing away from the right.
— the sun shadow on her cheek. It was around noon. With the sun, at this latitude, in the south the shadow from her right cheekbone is darker than the left.
Rowan Tree directional growth from a constant east wind, County Antrim on the Torr Road nort of Cushenden.
A few miles before Loughan Bay, at Coolranny, are informative placards describing the area. I thought the white flowering trees, or shrubs, on the slopes were Hawthorn. On revisiting my capture of the placards I learned these are a different plant named Rowan Tree, aka Mountain-ash. This wind stressed specimen is an typical example of Rowans on this coast, stunted and little more than a bush. This individual is slanted westward from a constant and stiff east wind, as with Anne Mills’ portrait. Residents, past and present, of this coast know this damp, persistent wind well. Note the lack of blossoms on the east side, blossoms that ripen to small dark red fruit called poms (also called rowans). The leaves turn red in the fall. More time, for the fruit to form and leaves to turn, was necessary for me to be certain my identification of this, as a Rowan, is correct.
We parked on a turnout above the Loughan Cottages, near this farmer’s sheep pen. He drove up in a huge tractor and conversed with Pam while I was below shooting the cottages. He made a good impression.
On this day, Friday, June 6, 2014 I did two rounds of shooting the cottages. The first, handheld, with a Sony Alpha 700. Upon returning to the car for the Canon, Pam was talking to a friendly sheep farmer who pulled up in a large tractor pulling a tank. It turned out we parked below the turnout for his sheep enclosure built on the hill west of Torr Road. His flocks grazed the surrounding land. He and I talked, too briefly, about the hard lives of the people who lived here.
The Coolraney placard, up the road, claimed the cottages were deserted in the 19th century. I found evidence, in the 1901 Irish Census, of three Roman Catholic families, 19 men, women, children, living on Loughan Townland. In Part 02 of this series, setting the stage, Loughan is sized at 112 acres, a single photograph captures Loughan entire. These families had nowhere else to live, in Loughan, other than the cottages.
The smallest, and poorest, the poorest of the poor, family was 32 year old Mary Corbit and her two children, 10 year old Mary and Robert, 2 years. The Corbit family lived in a one room, stone walled, house with a wood or thatch roof. Unlike the other families they had no outbuildings, structures to house livestock or to support a farm operation. The house owner was Marj Delargy.
Here is a single room house among the ruins, four low walls, the east/west with intact gables, the stones collected from the hillside. The west wall higher up the slope, the floor now thick with fern.
Little Mary most certainly took care of Robert for part of the day. Did Mary, with Robert along, gather rowans, and other forage?
A thick growth of ferns, grass on the gable was once a home with a view of Scotland’s Mull of Kintyre 12 miles across the Irish Sea. The Isle of Sanda just visible on the right of the far gable. Alisa Crag just visible in the distance, to the left of the nearest gable.
Mary Corbit: head of household, occupation laborer. There is a footnote to Mary’s “Marriage” entry as Married, “husband at sea.” The “C” of her census signature exactly like my mother signed her name Catherine.
Mary Corbit and her children were not listed in Loughan Townland for the 1911 Census.
The following year my sister Diane and I did two expeditions into the Superstitions, March and November 2006.
“A This video is from the November backpack, taken from the hill above the Ranch Ruin (Click me for “A Ride to Reavis Ranch”) you will experience the peace of this wilderness valley.
About that mysterious stone structure featured in this video. Over the years I have pieced together its purpose. When the ranch was active, a canal followed the contours from upper Reavis Creek to fill a pond down the hill from the house — I was shown the canal and walked it 2005. The structure was razed in the 1990’s, all that remains is the concrete foundation slab and, when I was there 2005 – 2008, scattered remains of the tile flooring. I am sure the pedestal above the house supported a water tank for a gravity water feed (“indoor plumbing”). Here is a link to more info about that site. The article does not discuss the water system.
For me, the romance of a place is settled in exact knowledge as much as a feeling. Starting with a recollection of the ruined cottages making such an impression we found a parking place and hiked into them loaded with photography equipment, three years later returning to use the photographs, bringing back a rush of memories and feelings, it is a matter of using the set of photographs from that day to build the location.
This much I knew, going in: we were touring Antrim Glens entering at Cushendall, after visiting Glenariff Forest Park, proceeding up the coast through Cushendun to Torr Head. A fortuitous encounter with a village of abandoned farm cottages (“ruins”) happened somewhere in between.
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There was a photograph of a notable church prior to the ruins and a fine view, from a place named Greenhill, afterwards.
Here is a picture of the terrain with the three pushpins:
A fine church just off Torr Road, to the west. I found the location in Google Maps, marked as “church”. Google earth showed buildings at the location, this set the “church” pushpin. Associated with the church, using the date/time stamp, were images of signage naming Coolranny townland.
A sign identifying a location as “Greenhill” was after. Neither Google Maps or Earth lists this as a place. It took hours searching web sites of Irish townlands before I found the reference. Greenhill is not a townland; it was listed as a place on one of the maps. Just above the notation was Torr Road, two unique bends in the road. I used these bends to identify the turnoff where I photographed the “Greenhill” sign.
For reasons to be explained later, it is important to know the name of the ruin townland. The place name sign presented in post 1 was a clue (“Loughan an Lochan” — or Loughan Bay), as well at the web site (see link below) listing Irish townlands. The web site map names “Loughan Bay.”
With this information I was able to peruse Google Earth, found the turnoff and the ruins!
See the above Google Map image sized to approximate the Loughan townland boundaries.
The scenery was jaw dropping lovely the entire time, so I captured view and view. Here are two landscapes time stamped just prior to the church, views including Coolranny and Loughan townlands with Torr Head in the distance.
That is Torr Road….
T
……a bit further along. It is possible to locate the ruin site from the Google Earth picture. There is a signature grove of bushes on the slope below the ruin site, sandy beach along shore. In the landscapes, Loughan Bay is cradled in a curve of coast.
In this series of three exposures from a tripod mounted Kodak DSC Pro SLR/c and Canon EF 50 mm f/1.4 USM lens, all were ISO 250, at f/8. The difference was the exposure time. In is the shortest exposure, 1.6 second, the human figures are blurred, though to a lesser extent than the second image, released earlier.
This is the last image of our trip to Zion National Park.
Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Another aspect of the gradual 1/2 mile inclined path to the central ring of the prehistoric Dun Aonghasa ruins of County Galway, Ireland.
The view north, northwest from this way to Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus). In early June, looking across wildflowers, karst landscape, walled fields, farms, the North Atlantic Ocean, coast of Connemara and the 12 Bens (12 Pins) mountains.
Note the doorway (with long lintel) in the surrounding wall, to left of center in middle distance.
An 84-degree October walk up Cascadilla Gorge—quiet paths, bluestone porches, fresh paint on the bridge—waiting for the footbridge to catch the last, warm evening sunlight.
Every fall I make a point of walking Cascadilla Gorge at least once. On an 84-degree October 9 afternoon, Pam was tied up with chores, so I parked downtown and stopped to see the grandchildren. They were with their mom. Two were “too tired” after school to do anything. The youngest, at the age of four, was not yet in school and he floated the idea of the skateboard park; for me, that wasn’t in the cards. So I set off on foot up Court Street, past the residence of Buddhist monks at the gorge entrance.
Cascadilla Gorge is part of Cornell Botanic Gardens (formerly the Plantations), the university unit that stewards natural areas and gardens across campus. Foot traffic was light. A sign explained why: the lower trail was closed at Stewart Avenue, where the bridge spans the ravine. I crossed to the north side by the Christian Science church and wound up Cascadilla Park Road to the rim trail that climbs East Hill toward campus.
Homes line this stretch, porches facing the gorge where the constant music of creek and falls carries up. Not feeling ambitious, I made a few phone snapshots. Here the path squeezes past a porch built of local “bluestone,” a feldspathic sandstone native to the region—around town it’s sometimes called “Llenroc,” Cornell in reverse.
That pot you see in the previous photo gets a closer look here, with more of the same weathered bluestone.
The drop to the gorge floor is steep, sheer in places. The barrier fence looks stout in some sections and thins to almost nothing in others. A few years ago, a recent Cornell graduate walking home late along this path fell to his death. I continued to the fork for the Ithaca City Cemetery, climbed to Stewart Avenue, turned right to cross the Cascadilla bridge, then right again onto the Gorge Rim Trail back toward town. At the bridge I noticed part of the closure work: fresh paint on the bridge and on the suicide-prevention netting beneath. On September 24—just fifteen days earlier—a Cornell senior had jumped; the net caught him, and the fire department brought him to safety.
From the concrete barrier in that photo you can peer into the gorge: a beautiful view, the steady voice of water rising from below. I try to leave the darker stories where they belong—at least until the sight of fresh paint pulls them back to mind.
I took the following photograph in 2005, the September before my previous post, “Autumn Stroll in Sapsucker Woods” with the Kodak DSC pro slr-c, an ND filter, 50 mm lens and a tripod. It was a planned session, I work waterproof boots and was able to stand in the creek after a series of rain-free days. At this time of the year the gorge opens to the setting sun. I waited, taking a series of photographs for the perfect amount of light on the footbridge. The feature photograph (the header to this posting) is a detail from a shot with the bridge more fully lit.
The header image for this post comes from a planned session in September 2005, just before the photograph of my “Autumn Stroll in Sapsucker Woods” post. I used a Kodak DCS Pro SLR/c with an ND filter, a 50 mm lens, and a tripod. After several rain-free days I wore waterproof boots and stood mid-creek. In autumn the gorge opens to the setting sun; I waited and shot a sequence until the light laid perfectly across the footbridge. The banner image is a detail from a frame where the bridge is more fully lit.
We have a framed print of that photograph at home. I mounted it as a gift to Pam on our first Valentine’s Day.
“September Sunset in Cascadilla Gorge”
If you’ve walked Cascadilla Gorge in autumn, I’d love to hear your favorite vantage points—porches along the rim, the lower stone steps, or the footbridge at golden hour. Do you know any stories about Llenroc bluestone on these houses, or remember the Stewart Avenue Bridge before its safety upgrades? Photographers: what helps you balance deep shade and bright water from the designated trails? Share a tip or a memory in the comments.
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Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
The image is from a tripod mounted Kodak DSC Pro SLR/c and Canon EF 50 mm f/1.4 USM lens, ISO 250, exposure 3.5 sec at f/8. The flowing water in forground has an appealing blur, fellow waders, in the distance under beeteling cliffs, are blurred and unrecognizable.
Here the canyon turns sharply to the right.
Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 