244 Rocky West Somerset beach (high-definition sound)

Radio Lento podcast

We found this quiet place in West Somerset. Afternoon waves softly breaking along a rocky beach under October sunshine. The low landscape of Wales visible across the water.

Lilstock. A port in bygone times, according to someone we met coming the other way. Now disused. A landscape of stony footpaths. Dense patches of shrubbery around outcrops of trees. Endless meadows and dry ditches. Fresh water streams and in the far distance on the clifftops, the boxy structures and cranes of Hinkley Point.

Human made sound was present but what really drew our ears were the long periods of near pristine quiet. Quiet lets the aural detail of natural landscapes be truly seen. Here, a beach not of sand or shingle, but of piles of rocks and small boulders. We tied the Lento box to a tree off the footpath about thirty yards from the shoreline, and left it to record the breaking waves alone. A little cricket was cricketing in the grass to the left of the mics. For late October we were surprised.

As we walked away we saw a large plastic blue barrel, captured by high tide rocks, roll its way loose and into the water. Then we watched it for a while set sail in the onshore breeze whilst exploring the rocks and boulders in the fresh afternoon air. When we returned an hour or so later to collect the Lento box we could still see the barrel. It'd floated up the coast past the mics. Listening back to the recording we could picture it, moving with the waves, from left to right of scene. One empty barrel that'd taken itself to sea, for a slow, silent voyage.

* Let us know if you think this episode is sleep safe. We know there are sounds of people (mainly us) playing distantly on the beach and for some this sense of the presence of people may feel sleep safe, but others perhaps not.