Floods in Somerset - some reflections: Sue Purkiss

A few years ago, I wrote a book about Alfred the Great, called Warrior King. The Vikings launched a surprise attack on Alfred, on Twelfth Night, 878. His army had been stood down for the winter: he had no choice but to flee. He headed for Somerset, for the marshes - he knew the country well because he had hunted there. With him (in my story) was his daughter, Aethelflaed...

When she awoke, the snow had stopped again, and veils of wispy dark cloud were flung out against a sky that flared with bands of gold and orange and scarlet. Oddly, the ground seemed at first to be the same colour as the sky, till she blinked and realised that she was in fact looking at a great sheet of water... Treetops stood out above the water, and the surface bristled with spiky dark patches, which she supposed must be reeds.

"This is the summer country," explained Alfred. "Somerset. In the summer, it's land. But it's very low lying, and in the winter, it floods and the hills turn into islands. Mostly you need a boat, but there are a few ways through on foot, and I know them."

He knew them, but the Vikings didn't - and so he was safe. One of those islands was Athelney (the Isle of Princes), which was his refuge; another is the small hill now called Burrow Mump.

This time last year, the news was dominated by images of the flooded Levels. I went down there not long after Christmas - it's about twenty miles from where I live - and took some pictures. There is very often water lying on the fields - it's not unusual not to be able to get to Athelney. For instance, I took this picture several years ago, when I was there researching Alfred's country; this level of inundation is routine.

Water lying near Athelney

However, last year was different. This is what I saw. And this was before the water had risen high enough to flood whole villages.

This is normally a field.

So's this.

The water here was almost over the road, but so far, not quite.

This is Burrow Mump, a small hill with a ruined church on top. Close by is the King Alfred Inn, which became a centre for community action when local people decided that the authorities weren't going to give them the help they needed, so they'd better help themselves.

This was the view from the top of Burrow Mump. The water is almost into the village, but so far, not quite.

So - the levels were very watery in Alfred's time - flooding is not a new phenomenon. The area is below sea level, so it's not surprising that it floods. It has been drained to some extent since the Middle Ages - the monasteries at Athelney, Muchelney and Glastonbury led the way. Then last century, much bigger drainage channels were constructed.

The two main rivers are the Parrett and the Tone, Towards the end of the last century, the management of the rivers and rhynes was rejigged, and they stopped dredging the rivers. The local people were not happy; the new regime seemed to go against what common sense, and years of experience working this very unusual landscape, suggested.

Last year, a system of land management which had apparently worked well for so many years failed. Although the moors had always flooded previously, people's homes had not. There were exceptional factors; unusually high tides forced water up the Parrett till it had to overflow, and there had been so much rain in previous months that the ground was sodden and could not absorb all the excess water. But the people insisted that, had the waterways been properly dredged, the water would have flowed more easily and the disaster would not have occurred. At first the authorities demurred, but now they seem to have changed their minds, and dredging has begun again.

Some of the people who were forced out of their homes have only just been able to return. A few, in despair, sold up at rock-bottom prices. Most didn't. Livelihoods were affected: it's been a very hard year.

I'm no expert, obviously. But it just strikes me that, particularly where you have a difficult and unusual environment which has been worked for centuries - then you really should listen to the people who live there and in particular, those who work the land. They are the keepers. They're in tune with the land, and they know what they're talking about.

Pictures: copyright Sue Purkiss

WITHY, by Jane Borodale

If an advertisement for the basket were ever needed – then surely this picture by Beuckelaer must be the one. This lady is strong! And her baskets! Just look at them; tough handled, sinewy, perfectly formed, smooth, and bursting with good produce. Hers is an affirmation of skilful basketry put to practical use.

Joachim Beuckelaer, (1533-1575), Woman Selling Vegetables

And (though at great risk of sounding like Prince Charles), I say bring back the basket – home grown, durable, long-lasting, as light as, well, wicker, and sustainable. In a world of rising sea-levels and reclaimed wetland returning to its natural state in the face of the cost of sea defences; wouldn’t it make perfect sense to say that dampness is in, with its accompanying willows and withy beds, and imported jute and hessian out of fashion.

Salix Purpurea, Otto Wilhelm Thome
1885

The Somerset Levels are now the only part of the UK where willow is grown commercially for basket-making, see Musgroves or Coates, but traces of previously widespread cultivation lie all over the country in place names containing ‘withy’, from Withypool, Hereford, to Withymead, Chingford. 

It’s the perfect material for everyday carrying or storage vessels, not to mention eel traps and lobster pots, cradles, hot-air balloon baskets, coffins, and fencing. Willow is also used for high grade charcoal for artists and gunpowder, and has potent medicinal qualities. It can last practically forever, (possibly why willow is associated with the dead in many cultures across the world?). For an example of wicker’s longevity, click here and then scroll down a little for an excavation image of rare Roman basket, discovered beautifully preserved in a waterlogged pit at Marcham in Oxfordshire, and accompanying description of its possible use as a ritual object. 

I was interested to read that this basket was made of extremely fine stripped willow, of a fineness not grown in this country today, because although many texts about willow talk about the coarseness of basketry in the past, due to the limitations of methods of growing, old herbals mention many different kinds of withy or osier – implying that there was growing in withy beds, as well as pollarding from the tree, in early times. (Pollarding being where the tree is cut back to the main trunk, and then the resulting supple fresh growth of shoots or withies harvested each year.)

The Basketmaker, Jan Luyken (1649-1712)

Last year I did a short basketry course because for various reasons I have an old basket maker at the heart of my novel The Knot, a blind woman called Widow Hodges, and I felt it was important to at least partially understand the process of what she does all day. It was very demanding – like maths with twigs, and very hard on the hands, both in terms of strength needed and the astringent nature of the twigs. (I produced, since you ask, a very uneven greenish basket of which I was inordinately proud, that does despite its wonkiness actually get used for tidying every day. It took months for the deliciously sharp, smoky, bitter smell of damp willow to disappear from the room where it lives.) The tools used by basket makers are very simple and haven’t changed much over the centuries; a picking knife, a bodkin, horn full of grease…

Seriously, for those of us living in damp places, withy beds must be the thing to invest in, for when oil runs out…?