Strictly On The Levels
The Age
Saturday January 18, 2003
RURAL LIFE IS A CONSTANT BATTLE WITH THE WATERY ELEMENTS IN SOMERSET, IN SOUTH-WEST ENGLAND, SAYS PENNY WEBB.
There we were, skirting a withy bed and following the course of a rhyne, to the sound of heavy earth-moving equipment under a lowering sky, just because I'd been intrigued by the phrase ``the Somerset Levels" in a country-craft story in a glossy mag in Melbourne.
Thinking only that the destination gave some shape to a few hours in which to catch up with my friend on my arrival in south-west England, I'd said, ``There's this place I've just heard of . . ." and we drove west from her grey stone village not far from the Wiltshire border, headed for an area of 645 square kilometres of moorland, crisscrossed by ditches and rivers, north-east of Taunton in Somerset. We were going to check out the Willows and Wetlands visitor centre in Stoke St Gregory.
For half an hour, the height of the late-summer hedgerows that bordered roads barely wide enough for two cars to pass, let alone negotiate the sedate but deafening passage of a tractor, permitted only glimpses of the west country pastures until we'd left Somerton on the A361, on our way to Langport, the market town in the south-east corner of the Levels.
But by then, even my unpractised eye could make out Glastonbury Tor on the horizon, away to our right. A sure sign that the terrain had levelled out was a woman and two young children on bicycles at the start of a 37-kilometre cycle route around the West Sedge Moor, which returns to Langport alongside the River Parrett.
We overtook them on a causeway between flat, marshy fields, a nondescript landscape with, as English travel writer Adam Nicolson says, ``indistinct edges", a consequence of the continually shifting boundary between land and water.
This is a landscape in which areas of higher ground, such as the wonderfully named Burrow Mump, must be read as former islands in a marshy area lying below sea level, regularly subjected to flooding.
It's not a glamorous landscape: it doesn't seduce the eye. But if water is your element, the Levels will capture your imagination. And while it's an area rich in Anglo-Saxon history, the continuing struggle at a micro level, between farming methods and the ecology of wetlands' flora and fauna, is just as compelling. The focus of our brief visit was the willow industry, the tree's pollarded shape being perhaps the most distinctive feature of the landscape.
At Curry Rivel we took the turn-off to the Coates family's basketwork business, established in the early 19th century. For #2.50 (about $7), we could have joined a guided tour of the workshops but after becoming absorbed in their museum of the prehistory and history of the area, we were keen to stretch our legs in the open.
A seven-point visitor's map directed us away from the tidy farm compound, with its tea room offering the best, cloudy apple juice you'll ever taste, on a walk of about two kilometres.
A few hundred metres from the farm buildings, the footpath passed artist Louise Baker's wooden, carved sculpture celebrating the importance of the willow in the industry of the Levels. And, sure enough, nearby, from the remains of a demonstration bonfire in a clearing just off the path, we picked up sticks of charcoal made from burning willow twigs, just like the Windsor and Newton ones I'd bought as an art student.
But the main willow industry exploits the withies, the new growth that is struck so easily in the peaty soil from willow sets and grows to a useable size in a year. Their flexibility makes them ideal for any sort of woven work, including fences as well as fine basketwork.
But what was that droning noise?
Walking on past the field of slender stems more than two metres tall, ready to be harvested, we crossed the Haymoor Old Ryne and turned right along the straight line of the levee of the River Tone.
Although we were on the lookout for a 19th-century sluicegate, we did not, as it turned out, need it to remind us of the
continual need to control the level of the water in the rhynes, the drainage channels, for we couldn't ignore the three big, yellow graders that blocked our path towards Hook Bridge.
We were told by the cheerful gang busy kidding one of the locals that they were at the end of an 18-month project to strengthen the bank.
In fact, in one way or another, land management and attempts at human habitation and at gaining a sure footing have been going on here for thousands of years: the remains of the oldest known track in the country - about 6000 years old - was found near Street in the north-east of the area.
Following the ditch builders' directions, we climbed Windmill Hill: even its modest incline gave a panorama of the area.
Of the dozen landmarks on the topographical diagram we found positioned by the former site of the mill, we were drawn to nearby Athelney.
We gazed north-east towards Stan Moor and that ``lake village" where King Alfred took refuge from the Vikings during the winter of 878.
But, if, by the end of the day, Alfred's hard-won triumph rather than the romance of Glastonbury's legendary King Arthur had captured our imaginations, the real battle of the Levels remains between man and water - imagine having to build a house on 12-metre deep concrete footings.
FAST FACTS
Getting there: Somerset is about three hours' drive from London. There are also train and bus connections from the capital.
Visa requirements: Australian passport holders do not require a visa.
Currency: $A1 equals about 35 pence.
Visitor information: Willows and Wetlands
Visitor Centre, Stoke St Gregory (north-east of Taunton) is open Monday to Saturday from 9am-5pm. Guided tours of the workshops cost #2.50, www.coates-willowbaskets.co.uk
Reading: Wetland - Life in the
Somerset Levels, by Patrick Sutherland and Adam Nicholson.
Websites: www.somerset.gov.uk/levels/
© 2003 The Age
