The fields of Ennor

Artists trying to find a new way of seeing the landscape may need to try something more unusual than standing and gazing at the view or walking and taking notes. I always think of Peter Lanyon, driving round Cornwall trying to find new angles and eventually taking to the sky in his glider. Roger Deakin's book Waterlog might also be seen in this way: he chose a cold, wet option - swimming in rivers, ponds, lakes and seas around Britain. Literally immersed in these places he not only got a different perspective, he was also sometimes able to see landscapes that would be otherwise inaccessible, like the submerged fields of Ennor...

Deakin's swimming journey started off the coast of Cornwall, where he swam between the Scilly Isles of Bryer and Tresco. He explains: 'The Scilly Isles are the last outcrop of a ridge of volcanic granite that forms the backbone of Cornwall and they were, until about 4000 years ago, the high points of a big island called Ennor. But the melting of the polar ice caps that began after the last Ice Age meant that Ennor’s lowland valleys and fields were gradually submerged. I donned the wetsuit, mask and snorkel, and swam out into the shallow sandy bay. It was high tide and about thirty yards off the shore I looked down at a pair of stone walls meeting at a right angle, and a circle of stones that must once have been a sheep pen. With seaweed hedges growing from the stones, these are the patterns and remains of the patchwork of old fields that once stretched all the way across the valley to Tresco. They are really just a continuation of the remaining field boundaries on shore. This may be why some stretches of water around the Scillies still have names from Before the Flood that are literally outlandish, like Garden of the Maiden Bower or Appletree Bay.'

There are many obituaries and memories of Deakin (who died last year) on line: see here for example. Ken Worpole pays tribute to Deakin on the Open Democracy site (one of several short pieces he has written there on Landscape and Identity). There are also various texts by Deakin, like this one about orchards on the Common Ground site. And the Radio 4 site has a programme Deakin made on a canoe journey from Redgrave Fen in Suffolk to Geldeston Lock in Norfolk, along with another about his garden.