My favourite place by Frank McElhinney, visual artist
Where is it?
Ravenscraig, North Lanarkshire. Many Scots remember Ravenscraig as a vast steelworks at the eastern edge of Motherwell. Since the plant’s closure in 1992, it has become a vibrant, rambling, wilderness with signs of new town development at its borders.
Why do you go there?
I began visiting Ravenscraig regularly in 2020. It was the perfect place to roam free whilst maintaining social distance from the occasional dog walkers and dirt bike riders. I became hooked on learning about the natural regeneration of the site.
It is also a good place to reflect on the history of Scotland’s heavy industries and their aftermath. There are still remnants of the railway lines laid through the site by my grandfather Hugh and his workmates.
How often do you go?
Visiting Ravenscraig has become part of my weekly routine. I check what my trail cameras have seen when I am not there.
How did you discover it?
When I was five years old, in 1969, I stood outside my grandmother’s house on Meadowhead Road in Craigneuk, Wishaw. The giant towers of the steelworks rose above her rooftop. The place has loomed large in my consciousness ever since.
What’s your favourite memory?
My father remembers playing on the farmland immediately north of his home in Craigneuk before the Second World War. There were cows in the fields and ravens in the sky. All of that was swept away with the construction of the steelworks in the 1950s.
I remember in early 2021 experiencing feelings of deep joy and excitement when I heard, then saw, that ravens had returned to Ravenscraig.
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Who do you take?
I often go with my friend Hamshya Rajkumar. Hamshya lives within a short walk of the site. She is an expert guide to the flora and fauna of Ravenscraig. Together, we make photographic and sculptural works inspired by our investigations there.
What do you take?
I take my pinhole camera and tripod for making long exposure photographs. I also take a pocketknife for stripping the bark off dead birch trees to make birch oil.
What do you leave behind?
I leave trail cameras tied to trees in the middle of the young forest that now covers large parts of Ravenscraig. Triggered by motion and body heat, the cameras photograph a wide variety of birds and animals, including an abundance of badgers, foxes and deer.
Sum it up in five words.
Vibrant. Haunted. Familiar. Wild. Free.
What other travel spot is on your wish list?
I want to spend time in County Mayo where my maternal grandfather Patrick Durkin came from. He was a miner at Kingshill No. 1 pit at Allanton, Lanarkshire. The coal he dug fed the furnaces of Ravenscraig.
Frank McElhinney’s work is featured in A Fragile Correspondence at V&A Dundee, Scotland’s exhibition from the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, which explores the relationship between land, architecture and language at Loch Ness, Orkney and Ravenscraig. Entry is free. Visit vam.ac.uk/Dundee
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