T&A Camera Club member's Abandoned Places book

Children's artwork on the walls of a Heaton primary school

The eerie beauty of empty places once bustling with life - disused factories, old banks, a derelict colliery, a deserted farm - have been captured by Bradford photographer Simon Sugden, who has travelled the UK, gaining access to long forgotten buildings.

Now the extraordinary images are showcased in his new book, Abandoned Britain. Simon - a member of the Telegraph & Argus Camera Club - brings to light the beauty of disused buildings and other sites no longer home to the activity of people. These are places left empty, gently decaying. But a ghostly presence of their previous life remains.

The old canteen at Keighley's Peter Black footwear factory

The buildings include mills, mines, hospitals, asylums, farmhouses, fairgrounds, churches and bars. Boats, cars and aircraft are left to rot in hidden landscapes. Nature is reclaiming some places, others seem almost untouched by disuse.

A university lecture hall is suspended in time, as if the students simply stood up and left. Ornaments are dotted around a cottage sitting-room, a pair of shoes in front of the fireplace. Rusting tools lie side by side on an abandoned workbench.

The M&S building on Darley Street

Among the Bradford locations that Simon photographed are Drummonds Mill in Manningham. “I was invited to document it over five years and witnessed it the night it burned down,” he says. “I was devastated to see it destroyed in this way, but I wanted to record its last hours as it was the building that had introduced me to urban photography, and I had learned my trade with it.”

Ilkley-born Simon is a self-taught photographer. He picked up his first DSLR 14 years ago when he bought a cheap camera from a friend. His passion is architecture, leading him to take pictures of abandoned buildings. Working freelance for a building company and Bradford Council, he has been able to access the interior of buildings normally closed to the public. Now an award-winning photographer, Simon’s images have been featured in magazines and on album covers. He has recently been documenting the Darley Street Market project, and his book includes a photo of the disused M&S building which occupied the site.

In his foreword to Simon’s book, Tim Sanders from the Royal Photographic Society writes: “I initially discovered Simon’s work with his first book, Derelict Britain: Beauty in Decay, and I was so impressed with the images that I persuaded him to make a Zoom presentation for the Royal Photographic Society. It did not take long into our first conversation to realise the massive passion Simon has for his photographic subjects.

Old looms and bobbins at a disused mill

“Photographers have had a fascination with architecture since the dawn of photography. These early exponents of the art would have faced enormous difficulties in the equipment they used which was cumbersome and difficult to manoeuvre. Materials were fragile and often had to be rapidly developed soon after exposure. Simon has not faced these difficulties, however, it is not all plain sailing, and he has dealt with his own set of complications in producing this volume. Firstly, the building owner often needs to be found and contacted to gain permission to photograph inside, which is invariably a time-consuming process. Secondly, the state of the building has to be assessed and health and safety aspects have to be considered. In this Simon’s long experience in the building industry is of great assistance.

A stairwell at RAF Church Fenton

“Thirdly, although modern equipment is not as cumbersome, the interior conditions often require supplementary lighting brought in to cast light into the often dark, boarded-up recesses. Fourthly, conditions are often less than hospitable. Damp and dust are ubiquitous, and there are times when Simon is taking photographs standing up to his ankles in guano. These conditions often call for him to be kitted out with breathing apparatus, protective clothing and hard hats before entering these vermin-infested, dusty, guano-soiled environments.”

In this book, says Tim, “we get to view a treasure trove of evocative buildings - derelict, abandoned and, in many cases, close to obliteration by demolition, redevelopment or plain decrepitude. Simon has to coin Cartier Bresson’s famous saying caught the ‘decisive moment’ before their demise.

Empty pool at the Richard Dunn centre

“Many of the buildings appear dismal and disintegrating at first sight but are transformed under Simon’s lens to be evocative and atmospheric, prompting our imaginations and often imparting a sense of sadness. No more so than when he includes some relic of human occupation.

“Today pictures are everywhere, the product of mobile phones or cameras. We are worn down by pictures that are okay, but mundane, ordinary, commonplace - in a word, boring. So it’s a great pleasure to find a book like this where there is excitement in turning every page and eagerness to find what comes next, whether it be an old mill or abandoned cottage. This is an historical documentation of buildings facing if not total destruction, then irrevocable changes. This book captures for posterity these buildings at that fraction of a second when the camera shutter opened and closed.”

* Abandoned Britain, by Amberley Publishing, available (including signed copies on request) from suggysphotography.uk, or Facebook.com/suggyspics