Westering

Beginning in Great Yarmouth and meandering to Aberystwyth, Westering is a coast-to-coast journey traversing the Fens, East Midlands, Birmingham, the Black Country and central Wales. It connects landscape, place and memory to evoke a narrative unravelling the deep topography. Exploring a westerly route that runs against the grain of the land, Laurence Mitchell also reveals its geology, culture and historical bedrock. With the industrial Midlands sandwiched between bucolic landscapes in East Anglia and Wales, this route takes in places that are too often overlooked. Along the way we encounter deserted medieval villages, battlefield sites, the ghosts of Roman soldiers, valleys drowned for reservoirs, ancient forests, John Clare’s beloved fields, and the urban edgelands. Notions of home and belonging, landscapes of loss and absence, wildlife, the psychology of walking, and the psychogeography of liminal places all frame the story.