Living on my part of the North Wales Coast as I do, I’m blessed with miles of sandy beach from Talacre in the east to Rhyl in the west. The beaches are wide and from a photographers point of view pretty boring apart from the groynes which are there to break up wave action.
I’ve lived here about ten years now and usually if I’m on the beach I visit Talacre for the lighthouse or the sand dunes. Sometimes Gronant Dunes for the wildlife, so its very rare that I head along the coastal path towards Rhyl. But intrigued by a photograph from a fellow camera club member showing the ruins of Salem Bungalow on the border between Prestatyn and Rhyl I decided to go and have a look. This served two folds. It got me out and I didn’t have to walk too far on my tendon, which is gradually getting better.
At first it just looks like there is a jumble of rocks which look pretty uniform in shape. With the tide on the way out and a casual glance towards the sea, you could almost be forgiven for missing this historical building.
Salem Bungalow was built by Alfred Dickinson an early pioneer of electric tram technology. Source History Points
Unfortunately the sea was gradually eroding the land and to combat this Mr Dickinson built a sea wall to protect the bungalow which had a verandah and a rooftop balcony. When he died in 1941 the family inherited Salem Bungalow but by 1944 they abandoned the bungalow and slowly it crumbled into the sea.
Over the years the remains of Salem Bungalow are covered at least once a day, sometimes twice by the incoming sea. Occasionally been battered by storms, we do get a fair few on this coast, but at low tide you can see the remains of what was a pretty substantial building.
If you are careful, you can clamber over the boring slippery concrete blocks to get closer to these interesting structures which start to become exposed as the tide recedes.
All of yesterday’s photographs were shot using the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mk2 with the Olympus 12-40mm Pro lens at f8. I used a 10 stop ND filter from the SRB Elite Filter System. Post processing of the RAW file was done in Adobe Lightroom specifically for Black and White.
Say It With A Camera 
It is surprising that a ruin can actually make a beautiful and interesting photo. It seems a shame that the house was allowed to crumble into the sea but maybe back then it was too expensive during the war years or maybe there were no male heirs that were interested in keeping the house from the sea. It would be interesting to know what the home looked in all of its glory.
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Love these pictures. You are blessed to live in Wales.
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