River, Coast & Creek

River, Coast & Creek

An Exploration of Maritime Essex by Judith Ellis

Essex is edged with mudflats and salt marsh, marginal spaces that are neither sea nor land. That sense of an unclear boundary is a recurring theme in this exploration of maritime history, in which creatures half-fish and half-animal were thought to haunt the oceans and the bed of the North Sea was once an inhabited country. 

Illustrated throughout with the author's sketches, this unusual book takes you on a glorious and unpredictable journey from prehistory through to the end of the great days of sail, when the railways and the Diesel engine changed the world forever.

RECENT REVIEWS:

“Here is someone who is able to put her enchantment of this most mysterious, shifting landscape into lovely, flowing prose” Stefan Meyrick-Hughes, Classic Boat

“ The book explores the geology and history of the Essex coast with excursions into many areas. Doggerland, sailing barge culture, mermaids and sea monsters; and in the process it populates those vast expanses of marsh and sky with people and events that fill them with life and interest.” Sam Llewellyn, The Marine Quarterly

“This is the third in a trilogy on the East Anglian coastline. It is a wonderful medley as she goes off at a tangent time after time to fill in colour what makes the Essex coast what it is, accompanied by her sketches and sketch maps. Here are geology, with the inundation of what has become the North Sea, human evolution, the Cinque ports, the Hudson Bay Company, smuggling, Anglo Saxons, oysters and classic yacht racing. You can almost smell the tar and seaweed. This is an understated coast, nowhere better described than in this wonderful set of three books.” Stuart Fisher, The Canoeist