My Most Influential books.

 

 My most influential books.

Our daughter spent a few summer weeks with us after graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1989. A friend sent her one of those picture postcards of a collage of pictures of brilliant tropical birds, sumptuous flowers, tangled jungles. It was posted in Queensland and sent to her by a fellow student whose mother was taking him on a world trip to celebrate his graduation. Looking at the small evocative images, I said ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Australia.’

and Kim said ‘Um! I’d like to go too.’

and I said ‘let’s go!’

When Tony came home from work that evening we said ‘We’re going to Australia. Do you want to come?’ and he said ‘Yes.’

Within three months, we were on the plane to Sydney and the rest as they say is history.

When I was about nine, I was given for Christmas a secondhand copy of Swiss Family Robinson. It was a child-friendly story written in German in the early 1800s, and based on the true story of Robinson Crusoe whose shipwreck had occurred a hundred years previously.

My copy, a translation, had a lavish blue, black and silver-coloured cover, and was plentifully illustrated with steel engravings showing all sorts of events, views, animals and adventures which befell the family following their shipwreck on the coast of a tropical island while bound for Australia to become missionaries and settlers.

The sole survivors of the wreck, the parents Robinson and their four sons were able to salvage great quantities of corn, seed, tools, animals and all the commodities that would have been carried in a ship bound for a far colony in those days. By exercising ingenuity and faith, they fabricated a raft from huge casks, and made it onto dry land.

The book was of course of its time and I, as a nine-year-old towards the end of the war with none of the precocious attitudes of kids these days, accepted happily the black and white illustrations, the less-than credible adventures, the unquestioned authority of the father, and the biddable natures of the four sons. Fritz, the eldest at 15, was fiery, hot-headed but still very much under the thumb of the father. Ernest was quiet, of a delicate sensitive disposition, Jack an adventurous 10 year-old and Frank the baby at six.

The father a Swiss pastor never lost an opportunity to hold forth about the morals required of his boys and frequent bending of the knees in thanks to the Almighty encouraged me to skip extensive passages but that never hindered my unbounded pleasure in my many re-readings of the book.

For example, I felt sorry for Jack on one occasion when Sunday was announced by Mr Robinson, who was the narrator of the book:

‘Today is Sunday and we are about to celebrate it as a day consecrated by God to rest.’

‘Sunday!’ cried Jack. ‘Hurrah! I shall go for a walk, hunt, fish, do just as I please. Capital! Capital!’

‘You make a grievous mistake’ I said to the giddy-headed fellow. ‘The Sabbath must be celebrated in quite another way. It is not a day of idleness or sport, but a day of prayer and thanksgiving, of religious thought and exercise.’

And more follows along the same lines for a couple of pages. Skip! Skip!

Dad used to scoff at the unlikely occurrence of the mixture of the animals encountered, from wild asses to lions, tigers to hippos , kangaroos to ostriches, penguins to condors, all hugger-mugger on an East Indian island; but again that never bothered me.

I became very possessive of my Robinsons, living their free, constructive, adventurous and happy life on their desert island, so, in the later chapters when there was the hint of other people and the intimations of rescue, I never ever finished the book. I didn’t want anything to stop, or change.

After a couple of years Dad discovered the sequel, called Willis the Pilot. Like most sequels, it didn’t live up to expectations. It was even written by a different author; the family had been rescued, the boys grown up and scattered. I peeped into the first chapter or two but could never bear to read about the destruction of all my vivid imaginary life with the Robinson family as I knew them. So Willis the Pilot was eventually kicked out to a jumble sale and I picked up another copy of Swiss Family Robinson. But neither did this live up to expectations. It was a bigger, American publication from 1915, on thick foxed and crumbling paper with fewer but coarser illustrations; the text though equally moralistic, differed in places and even Jack was called James!

The saddest part of all, now I want to look again at my old love, I find it isn’t on the bookshelf where it belonged. I can’t believe I’d have parted with it.

What a deeply engraved influence that story, and that particular edition, must have had on my imagination. I think it must have been at the root of my longing to go to Australia.

Dipping into the only copy I now have, I squirm at the moralistic preaching by Pa Robinson but I’m now prepared to accept it as of its time (and skip!) I’m very aware of the difference in the unquestioning acceptance and respect for authority in those days, not all that different to when I was young, unlike the constant challenging of authority by children these days and the liberal attitudes of adults who at the same time wring their hands about ‘the young’. Where is the middle way?

This classic story has been popularised in many subsequent versions including film but I can’t bear to look at any of them, feeling in my bones the original will be simplified, cheapened, dumbed-down, jazzed-up, cartooned, vulgarised or in other ways strayed from ‘my’ version which I will take to the grave with me, for better or worse.

Another book which influenced me hugely as a child of the war years, was my father’s copy of a book by the celebrated Grey Owl in his ‘Tales of an Empty Cabin.’ published in 1936 . This was a haunting collection of tales of life and trapping in the Canadian wilderness by a man who claimed to be part- American Indian. For children already interested in spending all our available leisure time in the countryside ‘in nature’ as the popular term has it today, Grey Owl’s stories of living in the wild, living invisibly, following tracks, infected us with longings to live in the same way. We moved invisibly and soundlessly in our nearby woods, making simple camps hidden in the undergrowth, tracking each other in games of skill, even making ourselves chieftains’ head-dresses, not of eagle feathers but pigeons’ tail feathers. Tepees were problematical: We had of course to substitute hides with cloth, but even acquiring pieces of cloth during war-time when everything was rationed, meant that our hard-pressed mums had to ransack rag-bags for ancient fragments of curtains.

These invented games unconsciously developed our field-craft and observational skills, but what we did take seriously was the ‘copying of American Indian ways’ rather than any thoughts of ‘conservation’. We nicked our fingers and mixed our blood to become ‘blood brothers’.

And we took Grey Owl at face value. It was many years into my adulthood before I came across him again. He was by then revealed as a fraud. He was English, a boy with a difficult background but always fascinated by American Indian life and culture. He emigrated to Canada and as an adult became a trapper and a wilderness ranger, later becoming a noted public speaker and conservationist while by this time claiming to have come from Mexico and had an Apache mother. His past history as a trapper was quietly ‘forgotten’ but he was not forgiven for his fraudulent claim nor what was found to be his illegal marriages and liaisons with four wives and he was dropped by the publishers of his several books. He was an alcoholic and died of pneumonia alone in the wilderness at the age of 48.

With hindsight, it seems odd to have such a flawed character as an early inspiration but his then unsuspected personal flaws didn’t affect us as children . We simply sang his song in the wild. And whatever his flaws, they must have been more than balanced by his talks and books raising awareness of the value of old-growth forest and wildlife in the pre-war days when conservation as a concept was virtually unknown.

By far the greatest impact on my childhood and indeed the rest of my life was  the book written by a school science teacher in the late 1800s. My father had bought his copy in 1918 and as soon as I discovered it at about 8, I took it over. It was RS Furneaux’ ‘The Outdoor World: a young collector’s handbook’.

My childhood was spent during the war, but had the double advantage of living close to unspoilt Hertfordshire countryside, with the freedom to range as far afield as I wished, without constraint. These wanderings were invariably with the boy next door, much the same age and with the same deep fascination with nature. This freedom, compared with the constraints and perpetual overseeing by adults these day days, was a pearl beyond price.

The seasons dictated our craze of the moment, varying from winter damming the little woodland springs and searching for fossils in the several disused chalk-pits in the surrounding countryside, to bird watching, nest hunting in the spring, seeking out ‘first flowers to open’ as the season advanced; catching water creatures from frogspawn time to sticklebacks and crayfish as the chalk streams warmed, and the summers of butterfly and then moth-catching.

Our bible was ‘Furneaux’ which was very readable and full of illustrations and descriptions of how to collect, preserve, label, store one’s trophies. The modern castigation of collecting, picking let alone killing any kind of wildlife was completely un-heard of back in the 1940s. I still feel that over-riding the killing of specimens was a mere tiny part of the later despoliation of wildlife triggered by agricultural intensification, other causes of habitat loss, use of chemicals, pollution etc . The amount we learnt about natural history vastly outweighed the harm we did to the natural world and led us as adults to recognize the harm being done in the subsequent decades and hopefully to live in a less damaging way.

As children, our principal interest was not only to see but to collect and so The Outdoor World was a treasure. Written in a straightforward manner, aimed at boys (girls didn’t enter the mindset of those times!) it was divided into three parts; The Animal World, Plants, and a very brief section on Geology at the end.

Each section gave a comprehensive overview of the animals and plants that could be found, so the book was a very instructive manual of general natural history, and each section gave a wealth of illustrated information on how to collect and preserve your finds. Some of the killing methods and poisons advocated would make your hair stand on end these days. To make a killing jar in which to slaughter your butterfly, for example, ether was recommended. We replaced it with ammonia, scrounged off our mums who used it in the washing in those days!

I should imagine this book would be burnt by horrified conservationists of today who never experienced the times of plentiful wildlife before the war and indeed into the 1940s. Of course I can’t condone the profligate killing that went into the collecting fevers of Victorian times but our youthful exploits taught us so much more than the formalized and ultra-protective culture of today.

How have these three books influenced me? I can’t say whether Swiss Family Robinson encouraged my urge to travel but it certainly fired me; I can remember exploits, illustrations and so many details of this superb story first read over 80 years ago.

Grey Owl taught me to to see, hear, feel, the detail of the country.

And The Outdoor World nurtured and informed the collecting instinct which is within so many children. My collecting these days lies in my amateurish photography, so much more accessible in these digital days. But how often do I look back at these images now, unless to check or verify something, whereas the long-term pleasure and satisfaction we got from collecting, identifying, displaying, labelling our trophies as well as the general field craft and careful observing in the process is a priceless value.

From Source to Sea: following the River Parrett. Part 3.

 Our third exploration of the River Parrett was in October 2023 and began in Bridgwater where we left off in July. The river is pretty-well obscured as it goes through the town, and we met it at the old docks where at one time two locks opened the river to two canal basins leading to the Bridgwater to Taunton Canal.

The river at low water is an un-navigable-looking muddy ditch! the cement walls  of the locks leading to the basins of the Bridgwater to Taunton Canal are centre picture.

Bridgwater Docks noticeboard. The docks were in use until 1971 but the locks giving access to the river are now in disrepair.

                                One of the two locks leading to the canal basins.

Sea-going ships would unload cargoes such as coal and iron into barges to be poled along the canal to Taunton or up the river to Langport. Out-going cargoes included wood and wool. The Bailey Bridges used in the War were constructed in Bridgwater.

Note the bridge leading from this outer basin to the inner one. It was once a lifting bridge to allow traffic to pass.

The inner basin is now a small marina. Pleasure craft can go up the canal (seen at the far end of the basin) to Taunton.

We resumed our exploration of the Parrett, going NW out of Bridgwater. The iron bollards remain where waiting ships could moor while waiting for the tide. We heard the sudden staccato outburst of a Cetti's Warbler in the reeds alongside the river here. 

The first village we came to after leaving Bridgwater was the very neat and tidy Chilton Trinity, named after the parish church of Trinity All Saints. Unfortunately the church was locked, with no indication of where to get a key. It was I find, in the very sparse information, dated from the 12th Century. It was built in an odd mix of a very coarse-grained  red sandstone, and a mixture of textured grey sand- and mud-stones.

The inhabitants of this spick and span place were very jealous of their space, with 'no parking' notices everywhere, even beside a ditch!

We then ventured down a track between a series of pools which were the flooded remains of old clay pits. Some were apparently now 'Fishing Pools' and some, according to the map were Sutton Pools, a Somerset Wildlife Trust reserve. However, we again drew a blank, with no reserve information notices and only chained and padlocked gates. We drove on down towards the river, only to find that access barred too, but passed a series of long green plastic netted 'tents' which puzzled us.

Tony stopped to ask a workman about them. It turned out that they were supposed to be 'Bat Fences' to encourage bats to fly across the gap where a length of hedge had been removed, presumably to enable this track-widening (or car parking lay-by?) area to be made.

To rejoin the river, one has to drive though the small town of Cannington. An old convent , Court House became in 1919 the home of the Somerset Farm Institute where Tony spent a happy year in the 1950s. He still comments about the handsome red stone-walled garden belonging to the Institute. The convent for Benedictine Nuns dated from the 12th Century. The Farm Institute is now the Somerset College of Agriculture & Horticulture.

The next port of call was to the little riverside village of Combwich. This is looking upstream.

 Looking downstream. Combwich Wharf was developed initially to unload heavy loads from ships to lorries bound for the nuclear power stations at Hinkley Point a few miles away on the coast of Bridgwater Bay.

More recently further construction at the wharf is enabling more enormous loads to be taken to the new power station, Hinkley C

Combwich Wharf in mid-October 2023. Further construction beyond, is on-going.

The small village, as well as other villages in the area, and especially Bridgwater, have benefitted enormously from the jobs created, the demand for housing and the income provided by the many aspects of the development of Hinkley C.  

    It was misty by the time we reached the new Steart Marshes Reserve at the estuary of the Parrett where it runs into the northern end of Bridgwater Bay past the busy resort of Burnham-on-Sea. In the distance looming out of the mist, is the Nuclear Power Station Hinkley Point A & B with the construction site of C on the left.  

The reserve belongs to the Wildlife & Wetlands Trust who bought the farmland, following extensive local consultation, and after considerable excavation of pools and channels, the big river bank was breached in 2012, allowing the tide to flow over the old grazing land which rapidly turned into salt marsh. The first Avocets nested there in 2015, followed by breeding Black-necked Stilts in 2020, just two of the great numbers of  wetland birds which use the extensive reserve at different times of the year. Within half an hour of our arrival in October we saw a Great White Heron and later, a Spoonbill. The wetlands are also now recognized as a dragonfly hotspot. Access is freely available along well-made paths leading to several new and well-appointed hides.

Walking towards Steart Point along the peripheral path around the reserve.

Looking across the saltmarsh towards the river. This area now becomes inundated for great stretches at high water on a big tide.

The new Parrett Hide. This replaces the original converted shipping containers which at first were used as hides.

The big picture window shown here with the semi-circular seat looks out over the marsh and towards the river, as shown in the next picture.

This hide is 1.8km easy walking from the main car-park which is open daily (but with a height restriction for campervans between 4.30pm till 9am)

Car parking is free and there are loos on site.

The river seen here has opened up from its earlier muddy ditch to a wide, navigable waterway when the tide floods. The salt marsh in the foreground is also inundated at the highest tide.

                                                                                                                                                                                            

                                 

From Source to Sea: Following the River Parrett, Part 2

 

Middle Section of the River Parrett.

PART 2. LANGPORT to BRIDGWATER

July 11th’23

In spite of the unsettled spell of weather and following almost an inch of rain yesterday, we decided to have a look at the middle section of the River Parrett today. We were lucky, the rain held off despite threatening dark cloud- banks to the north from time to time.

We were at Langport by ten and drove to the canoe-launching slip and bridge over the river a little south of the town and walked up the tow-path into Langport. 

We went into town through the narrow mediaeval gateway with the landmark 'Hanging Chapel' above.

The town was quite busy, holiday-makers were building up and the main-street was  bustling. Many of the shops and premises were flying banners, each decorated in a different way, the designs presumably of significance to the premises displaying them. They looked a little faded as if this display is put on every year.

The main street, Langport.

We walked the length of the street as far as Bow Bridge over the Parrett. Some of the properties along the street were leaning back as the peatland they were built on subsides. I wonder what their insurance bills are like?

The river is tidal as far as Langport so the trade to and from this otherwise rather remote part of middle Somerset made it an important small town throughout the middle ages, but the coming of the railway in the late 1800s took the trade away.

 Downstream the river runs through a wide flat, low-lying area which would be marshland if not for the elaborate system of drainage ditches and careful water management.

The Ordnance Survey map of this area tells the story of the management of the low-lying country here more clearly than a ground-level view which can only be seen from between trees and over hedges at intervals. The land is divided into long narrow strips, divided by rhynes ( pronounced 'reens', the local term for ditches.) and the whole area is a mere 15ft above sea-level.

The blue lines on the map mark the rhynes.

From an information board about the Levels:

We drove north-west out of Langport and followed the Aller Drove. Mostly the droves on the Levels are field tracks but this one, an important short cut, has been surfaced.

It has frequent passing places and after a mile or two we stopped  near a bridge over the King Sedgmoor Drain, a major drainage channel.

                                    King Sedgmoor Drain from Aller Drove Bridge.

Rhyne dividing and draining strips of agricultural land. The rhynes are kept full of water in the summer to keep the soil damp, but are dredged in the winter and allowed to drain through sluices (clyces) into the main drainage channels.

Another rhyne.

Sluice or clyce draining a rhyne into the King Sedgemoor Drain by the Aller Drove Bridge.

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The rhynes have a rich and varied flora such as this Arrowhead. Its flowers are shown below.

    

The Levels are not only good farmland but also an invaluable habitat for wetland birds such as breeding Lapwings and Redshank in the summer and feeding sites for various duck species in the winter. Bitterns are increasing in the marshes and in recent years Great White Herons and Cattle Egrets are breeding.      

Great White Heron (greatly enlarged!) beside King Sedgemoor Drain at Aller Drove Bridge

 

             

Pollard Willows. The new young growth stimulated by winter cutting-back gave witheys, used for many purposes in the past, and still to an extent, for making willow baskets and other items.

We rejoined the river Parrett at Burrowbridge by the noticeable landmark of the abrupt little hill called Barrow Mump. From the top beside the ruined church there are splendid all-round views of the Levels.

About ten years ago there was a catastrophic flood, making the roads crossing the Levels impassable and cutting off two villages and many farms. It was the worst and most prolonged for a hundred years. Arable crops were ruined and the waterlogged soil prevented re-sowing after the water had subsided. The causes were many: the wettest January for many years, increased run-off from the land on the surrounding hills, failure to dredge the main rivers and watercourses. More and more pumps were brought in and installed and the Environment Agency took a lot of flak as the media, social media and even Prince Charles as he was then, became vocal. 

In the big flood in 2013, the Withey boats were replaced by tractors, four-wheel drives and inflatable boats to rescue people, carry supplies to embattled farms and fodder for stranded livestock.

We followed the river through the hamlet of Moorland. Reed warblers were singing in the extensive stretches of reeds on the riverbanks.

                                                              Codlins and Cream (Hairy Willowherb.)

Hairy Willowherb (otherwise known as Codlins and Cream)grew alongside
and Purple Loosestrife (see picture below) made colourful patches. This handsome plant, a lover of wet ground, was introduced to the USA in the late 1800s and has been so successful in its spread that it can now choke waterways there, making them impassable and it is now declared a Noxious Alien in the USA.

The reinforced riverbank at Moorland. The houses just out of sight on the left, are built below the river level. No wonder they were flooded in 2013! We weren't sure whether this extra reinforcement pre-dates the big flood or was built as a result of it.

The pumping Station at Moorlands. The red-ochre coloured pipes are the huge new pumps brought in to speed up the drainage of the big flood.

The Parrett wound its way to the outskirts of Bridgwater where we lost it in all the development of this busy town. We plan to continue and conclude our trip along the last section of the river in the Autumn.

From Source to Sea: Following the River Parrett

 

FROM SOURCE to SEA: Following the River Parrett.    Part One .MAY 2023.

Following our previous explorations from source to sea of a few rivers in Cornwall and France and found this an interesting way to look at the countryside and settlements near the river, we are breaking the three-year hiatus in our activities caused by Covid, the lockdowns and then my health issues, to make a start on following the River Parrett. We know this river in parts but will now ‘join the dots’ and follow its 66 miles from source to sea. We will look at in in sequence, but at different times, so this first section we looked at yesterday on a fine sunny May-day with this late spring now at last beginning to green up.

Map showing the course of the Parrett from near Chedington in north Dorset, running NW to the sea at its estuary in Bridgewater Bay, north Somerset.

STAGE 1:The source to Langport May 3^rd 2023

We began in the attractive village of Chedington in north Dorset. As is so often the case, there are several springs which feed the young river. They arise on the north-facing slope of the wooded ridge of the Dorset Downs. The source of the River Axe is on the south side of this ridge. It flows in the opposite direction to reach the sea at Axemouth on the south coast of Dorset.

Dominating the village is the imposing listed house, Chedington Court. Built of the local honey-coloured Ham Stone, it stands on the site of a medieval dwelling (1185) but the present house was built in the Jacobean fashion in 1840. It looks north towards Crewkerne with a splendid view across a wide open plain through which the young River Parrett wanders towards the northwest between a patchwork of mostly grassy meadows in largely stock-rearing countryside. The bright yellow of fields of rape in flower was conspicuous, and now silage-making was in full swing, some grassland already cut and carted, was a pale green, with flocks of mixed corvids feeding on the newly-exposed thin remains of the grass crop.

                                                                Chedington Court

        Looking north from near the springs at Chedington which give rise to the River Parrett.

Wickipedia note about Wynyard's Gap, the prominent pub on the corner of the road leading to Chedington..(to enlarge print click CONTROL +)

 We followed the ridge overlooking the slightly undulating vale though which the river, as yet a shallow stream no more than four feet across, picked it’s tree-lined way between the fields.

The hedges had Field Maple a novelty for us in the acid soils of Cornwall, and the verges were covered with dandelions, fully open in the sun..

Dandelions and Red Dead-nettle.

Another novelty for us is White Dead-nettle, abundant here but much less often seen in Cornwall.

Orange Tips with conspicuous wing-tips of the males, were flying up and down the hedges, search for mates.

Talking to a lady at Chedington, we explained what we were doing as we gazed across the landscape and she agreed that it was a moot point as to which was the true source of the river. But she assured us by the time it reached the village of South Perrott a little way to the NW it is a ‘real river’! In fact it was a four-foot wide, shallow stream, turbid and the stones on the river-bed trailed murky wisps of algal growth. It would be interesting to see how it showed on a pollution test!

              

The 'real' river at South Perrott. It is four or five foot wide, rather turbid with rather toxic-looking algae growing on the stones.

And so it continued as it flowed through the wide flat expanse of farmland with occasional ham-stone villages, the river slowly becoming a little bigger and now and then a clump of Sparganium (Bur Reed) growing in the water. . The banks were largely fringed by a line of scrubby willows and alders.

The long-distance footpath, the Parrett Way followed the river at times, or at least the line of the valley, but detoured in places, as did the lanes which only gave us access to the river at intervals. It is about 50 miles long and eventually joins the Somerset Coastal Path at Bridgwater Bay

We detoured into Crewkerne to buy food for a picnic lunch. The attractive little town was busy, possibly partly because this week is straddled by two bank holidays and the impending Coronation, and there might be more holiday-makers about.

The upper headwaters of the Parrett run through this ancient town which was first documented by King Alfred who left it in his will in 899 to his son. It was later a manor of William the Conqueror and became a wealthy textile town in later medieval times.

Local architecture at Little Hinton.

                                                        Stone Stile.

Passing through Little Hinton, another small ham-stone village we stopped by the river between marshy fields. The geology in the Parrett basin is heavy Fuller’s Earth clay overlying Yeovil Sand and this low, flat ill-drained land must be prone to winter flooding .

We looked across to the villages perched on the further hillside: Chiselborough with the prominent spire of the church of St Peter & St Paul, and beyond, the village of Norton sub Hamdon with the tower of St Mary’s church. For the first time in this trip, we saw big flocks of sheep and Tony found Otter spraint on the edge of the river.

Still following the convoluted lanes we came to the oddly-named place called Parrett Works. A large stone-built mill with a tall clock tower, dominated the hamlet. Just beside the road bridge were the tunnel exits of two leats rejoining the Parrett at that point. Further upstream, the leats must have left the river, to flow pass the mill, and over a waterwheel giving power to machinery.

The mill was originally a snuff mill and later an iron foundry.

( ABOVE....This is what Wikipedia has to say about the mill.)

The road took us through East Lambrook, the home of the famous garden made at East Lambrook Manor by Margery Fish and immortalised in her book about the development of the garden by her and her husband. We visited it a couple of years after she died and although local volunteers were manfully trying to look after it, they didn’t have the intimate knowledge of every plant and its idiosyncrasies that the Fishes had. However, many years on, the garden is still open to the public and hopefully still maintaining the spirit and character of its original conception. Unfortunately this time we were too late in the afternoon to visit.

                                          East Lambrook Garden in its heyday.

Towards Langport the river is significantly bigger, now contained by levees to ameliorate flooding of adjacent land. The villages of Kington Episcopi and Huishe Episcopi are so-named because they were part of the extensive land holdings of Wells Cathedral.

                                                         Levees on river-sides.

         A noted historical site and tourist attraction is Muchelney Abbey near Martock.

And nearby is the lane to Huish Slipway where there is an activity centre hiring canoes and paddleboards to people for navigating the river from the slipway here.

The picture shows where a big drainage channel, the Long Sutton Catchwater drain flows into the Parret.

Langport. Some of the buildings along the town's main street lean at an uneasy angle due to subsidence of the underlying peat.

We arrived at Langport at the end of an intensive day. It was the natural end to the first section of the river and we plan to resume our exploration of the next stage through the Somerset Levels later in the season.