Waterlogged Poetry: Elder Beck

Back in 2018, I set off into the Lake District to record a series of site specific poetry films at rivers, tarns and becks. Avoiding the classic lakes, I chose places that I remembered from my childhood in Cumbria. I wanted to explore local and personal history in relation to the physical landscape, and show the relationship between water and Cumbria. The poems were written at the site and edited alongside the footage afterwards. Elder Beck is a stream on Helton Fell, looking down to Pooley Bridge and the northern end of Ullswater. For years this was known to me simply as the stream by the stone circle, which we would walk or cycle to over the fell. On one cold winter morning, we were excited to find icicles hanging down from the reed-clad banks. Any stream draining into Ullswater is a reminder of the Storm Desmond floods in 2015. Just along from Elder Beck is a stone seat made from recovered parts of Pooley Bridge, a 300 year old bridge that was washed away in the floods. Five years on, locals are still waiting for the permanent replacement bridge to be finished and join up the two sides of the lakeshore again.