A FORGOTTEN COAST

ILLUSTRATOR ALICE STEVENSON DISCOVERS CURIOUS PLACES AND SURPRISING PERSPECTIVES ON HER TRAVELS, EXPLORING WONDERLANDS WITH AN ARTIST’S EYE

On the edge of Oare village, on a creek of the River Swale in Kent, what looks like a lighthouse emerges from behind tree tops. It’s a deep, mineral grey, and a small windmill, now lacking its sails, is perched on top. It had been operated by The Gun Powder Company, as part of the Faversham area’s thriving explosives industry. It is difficult to reconcile this pretty, preserved village with the manufacture of such destruction.

I look inland over a wide marshy field where the beginnings of the creek should be. It features a curved wooden bridge but no water, as it is all dried up in the summer heat. Beyond the road, heading out towards The Swale, I follow its path, past moored sailing boats. The Swale is the 13-mile-long body of water that divides the Isle of Sheppey from mainland Kent. It is tidal at both ends, which flood the winding inland creeks. After a few moments along the path, I see the remains of a boat semi-submerged in the shallow water. It is a deep, sea green and its rough surfaces emerge among long grasses that are poking out of the water’s edge. Its contorted form and its tastefully weathered colour bring to mind the farm and military machinery depicted in Eric Ravilious’s graceful paintings.

The tide is high. A row of groyne tops pokes out of the water and the seagrass emerges in patches where the water has not quite overwhelmed it, like little areas of facial stubble. This is what is so satisfying about a marshy, coastal landscape: the boundary between land and water is constantly shifting according to the tides, continually creating new but often temporary perspectives and features. A ditch runs alongside to the right of the path, and beyond it are fields in which cows sleepily graze and the hill rises. The wide barn of Pheasant Farm is perched on top of it, its wide doors open, so you can see out the other side.

Across the creek, another group of sailing boats perches on the water, their masts cluster into a formation of upward-pointing lines, spearing the low-hanging clouds that have formed above them and echoing the protruding grasses. It seems that everything here – from the decrepit fence posts that lead down to the water to the battered groyne tops – are pointing skyward. Further boat remains surface and large, round crater-like pools emerge, breaking up the repetitive formations of the upward-pointing grass. These are caused by areas of mud that are too unstable to support plant life and remind me that there is a rich and varied world beneath the surface of the creek, too. The long rushes that line the ditch make a soft, swishing sound, overlaid by the clinking of the boat masts: a perfect sonic reinterpretation of the environment that surrounds me.

Ahead of me, as I reach the marshes, a row of pylons cuts across the water and disappears into the distance, both east and west. The nearer ones tower over the scene from such a height, emphasising the flatness of both land and sea. A tiny sailing boat with a fluorescent blue sail glides past a bright red buoy. And suddenly the scene in front of me, with these two tiny areas of concentrated colour against a subdued background but overlaid by a linear geometric pattern is reminiscent of an abstract painting by Paul Klee. The grass on the opposite bank is beginning to glow a sinister yellow, and the pylon reflects indistinctly in the water. I become fascinated by the shadow that one forms on the grass, rounded like a geodesic dome or a child’s climbing frame, and while I have huge affection for the way these structures interrupt the endless green of the English countryside with their graphic, black lines. I find these versions of them, softened by water and grass, also pleasing.

As I reach the marshes, the distinction between water and land blurs further; from my raised pathway I look out over the long grasses. A large, silvery pool spreads across them, dotted by the imperceptible shapes of sea birds. From this angle, The Swale is almost hidden and the distant mound of Sheppey is but a patchwork of pale fields and trees.