"Behind me, bare s and es lie as cracks against the sky, evoking a peculiarly English landscape. In the late eighteenth century, drew the abbey's ruins in his sketchbook, tracing out the trees that had grown up around the crumbling gothic arches. In 1816 stayed at on his honeymoon, and painted its scudding clouds and billowing scenery. Theirs were records of a Romantic setting, an alternative reality of sensation and emotion. Hanging over the shore, the gnarled, enamelled branches are made darker by the reflected light of the sea and the stretch of bright shingle,"
Philip Hoare

January 1, 1970