Strange goings on in Talacre and a giant Cyclops!

Strange goings on for day three of my photographic week. I visited ruins that belong to what used to be a fully functional abbey in Talacre, North Wales. Just a short distance from the town of Trelogan sits a camp site who's name escapes me now. It is on top of a hill overlooking the sand dunes and the famous lighthouse that marks the beautiful beaches of Talacre.

Between two rows of caravans a turn-style gate opens out into a field. It slopes sharply down towards a long, high and very imposing looking wall that runs as far as the eye can see on the right of the field. Up on the left there is a small, exposed henge of trees and some ruins of what look like farm buildings (we didn't venture up there). Instantly you get the feeling of being watched, and half expecting to be shot at by an irate farmer or chased by bulls we made our way to the first of three sizeable holes in the wall.

Forgive the similarities to the three bears story here but the first was impassible due to barbed wire, the second had a fallen tree which would have made a great climbing frame but a good six to eight foot drop into a puddle of mud. The last was a small climb and a squeeze between an old fence that had long since stopped intruders and we were faced with a daunting wood.

Immediately, the wind picked up and howled through the trees menacingly warning us to stay out. After a short walk we found the ruins, after years of neglect most of he buildings were covered in ivy and other climbing plants. As the pictures show, the further into the building (which overlooks the newer abbey, which has long since moved away to Chester and is now a private house) you go, the stranger the carvings become. Although there is little information on the internet about this odd building there is a Government site that describes it as a 'folly tower and grotto' and dates it to around 1824 although no information is given about its true purpose or the people that may have lived there when it was in its heyday.

Of course, you can't help but feel more than a little spooked being in a dense forest on a gloomy day surrounded by bizarre carvings including Death himself, a Cyclops and what could have been a huge lion with an open mouth leading right through the solid rock to where a candle may have been placed on the other side. Was it a warning? Or a welcoming? Who knows. But it was certainly an experience, especially happening upon the life-size headless monk happily sitting in one of the downstairs chambers. Above where his head aught to be there seems to be a ghostly replacement in the wall behind him, you can make out eye sockets, a gaping hole where his nose should be and ever-grinning teeth.

One of the rooms was decorated from floor to ceiling in shells, including cubby holes in the walls for candles and possibly trinkets. Also a Chaise Longue that looks so real you have to touch it to see if it really is made of stone! There were lots of seats cut into the stone, and a table who's legs were claws carved out of stone.

Outside the buildings if you walk towards the sea, you enter the graveyard. Small, metal crosses mark the resting places of nuns and monks, some of whom have very Italian sounding names, buried as recently as 1987 the grounds have truly gone back to nature and the ten foot tall crucifix is intimidating despite someone stealing the Jesus from it.

Well worth a look if you're ever in the area, and if you can find it. Oh and one more thing, watch out for the terrifying robin! They're very territorial and God help you if you cross his path!