Lost to the Sea

Medieval kingdoms. Notorious pirate towns. Drowned churches. Crocodile-infested swamps.

On a series of coastal walks, Lisa Woollett takes us on an illuminating journey, bringing to life the places where mythology and reality meet at the very edges of Britain and Ireland.

From Bronze Age settlements on the Isles of Scilly and submerged prehistoric forests in Wales, to a Victorian amusement park on the Isle of Wight and castles in the air off County Clare, Lisa draws together archaeology, meetings with locals and tales from folklore to reveal how the sea has forged, shaped and often overwhelmed these landscapes and communities.

Lost to the Sea is an exhilarating voyage around the ever-shifting shores of the British Isles, and a haunting ode to our profound relationship with the sea.

About the Author

Lisa Woollett's family have found value in what is thrown away for generations – her great-grandfather was a scavenger and her grandfather was a dustman, while she herself has been a beachcomber all her life, and in recent years has taken photographs of her beach and river finds. She is the author of two award-winning photography books about the sea, and Rag and Bone won a Royal Society of Literature Giles St Aubyn Award for Non-Fiction. She has lived in Cornwall with her family since 2004, in a house shared with buckets and boxes of shore finds.

Praise for Lost to the Sea

"Filled with incident, insight and human curiosity . . . In elegant, haunting, always lively prose, Lost to the Sea proposes a vision of the great power of the elemental sea: the mysteries it has concealed, revealed, and will eventually take back to itself . . . a fascinating alternative history of the fractured, flooded and eroded edges of Britain and Ireland."
- Philip Hoare

"A haunting evocation of vanishing places. Meticulously researched, Lost to the Sea delivers scene after scene of watery destruction at a host of crumbling, mythical or sunken sites - and a timely reminder of the transience of our coasts"
- Philip Marsden

"Absorbing and highly enjoyable . . . Woollett has an excellent sense of the strange, the inexplicable, the funny and the unforgettable"
- Caught by the River

"A beautiful foray into the lost boundaries of Britain and Ireland"
- Lara Maiklem, author of Mudlarking

"An immersive and lyrically personal journey through deep-time and modern tides"
- Raynor Winn

"Wondrous, elegant and haunting, Lost to the Sea is a fascinating alternative history of the fractured, flooded and eroded edges of Britain and Ireland"
- Philip Hoare

"A hugely enjoyable mosaic of history, myth and imagination"
- Sara Wheeler

"Beautifully written and researched . . . I was immediately tempted to head out in search of lost lands"
- Wyl Menmuir