Debris Field

In the ruins of Thorpe Marsh

​On Saturday 19 April, I joined a small group of walkers and writers for a collaborative ramble in the traces of Thorpe Marsh, a former coal-fired power station in the flatlands north of Doncaster. This peripatetic workshop, led by poet Steve Ely, threaded between settling ponds and cloud-skimming pylons, stands of white birches and shards of anthracite coal. I'd visited Thorpe Marsh once before, also with Steve, in April 2022. When I returned three years later, and contemplated the site from the access gate, it seemed to have shrunk; after an hour or so of collective walking, crouching by a rusted pipe in which countless bees were nesting, surveying half-collapsed heaps of crushed brick and concrete, or gazing at the terminal towers of the electrical substation, I'd recovered my orientation and sense of scale.

Steve invited me to document the event; you can find a selection of my photographs below. Steve's own account of the walk, and reflections on the past, present, and possible future of the site, appear in a new post on the Longbarrow Blog: click here to read 'Thorpe Marsh Apocalypse'. A short creative writing course, 'Anti-Pastoral—Nature Writing on the Front Line', comprising workshops and walks led by Steve, is scheduled for this summer; click here for further details.

Steve Ely’s Eely, a symphony in four movements, is out now from Longbarrow Press.