I was fortunate to spend time with a French family in Le Coudray-Macouard, Loire, an intimate, beautiful village built entirely of Tuffeau stone. It would be hard pressed to match what people have written about this extraordinary region. The area is awash with the relics of the past-what occurred during the Revolution, Religious wars and Napoleonic times – and are etched in the landscape by the architectural remains. The region has lived two lives: one of grandeur and refinement, another of hardship and suffering. One without the other would leave the Loire Valley’s beauty bereft; it is beautiful precisely because the troubles of human civilisation has formed it-otherwise it would merely be the detritus of the aristocracy. I have made the attempt to illustrate the attention to detail, craftsmanship, history, intrigue and decay in this series of images. Multiple scanning techniques, fabrics, and digital editing have been utilised to craft the work to resemble what I felt, what I saw and what I remember of the Loire.