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The Easternmost House
Longlisted for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize
Within the next three years, Juliet Blaxland’s home will be demolished, and the land where it now stands will crumble into the North Sea. In her numbered days living in the Easternmost House, Juliet fights to maintain the rural ways she grew up with, re-connecting with the beauty, usefulness and erratic terror of the natural world.
The Easternmost House is a stunning memoir, describing a year on the Easternmost edge of England, and exploring how we can preserve delicate ecosystems and livelihoods in the face of rapid coastal erosion and environmental change.
Within the next three years, Juliet Blaxland’s home will be demolished, and the land where it now stands will crumble into the North Sea. In her numbered days living in the Easternmost House, Juliet fights to maintain the rural ways she grew up with, re-connecting with the beauty, usefulness and erratic terror of the natural world.
The Easternmost House is a stunning memoir, describing a year on the Easternmost edge of England, and exploring how we can preserve delicate ecosystems and livelihoods in the face of rapid coastal erosion and environmental change.
244 pages, Paperback
First published April 25, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
December 31, 2019
I live very close to the sea, close enough for the house to shake and sea spray to wash the widows when the full moon brings the highest of tides and there is a strong wind behind it; but with a road and a promenade separating us, and a house that has stood since the late 19th century, we feel safe and secure, for the rest of our lives at least.
Juliet Blaxland’s house by the sea is rather less secure; and this book was sparked by a timely prompt, to which she responded:
The house on the edge of the cliff was demolished this week, which means we are now the house of the edge of the cliff.
She knows that her house will have to be demolished in a few years time, because the soft cliffs are crumbling under the relentless pressure of winds and tides, and so the land on which it stands will be undermined.
This memoir of one of the last years spent in the house of the edge of the cliff takes the form of a journal, and each month there is an image, a well chosen piece of poetry and prose, all of the details of seasonal produce and events that you would expect a countrywoman to record – and the distance from the edge of the cliff and its change from the previous month. In some months there was no change at all, in other months there were visible losses, and over the course of the year the distance fell from 24 to 19 metres.
The author wrote about that with wit and with grace.
will not find the church of St. Nicholas, Easton Bavents, in your Pevsner guide to the buildings of Suffolk, nor will you you feel guilty when you repeatedly fail to be present in your pew as a regular member of the congregation, for you have the perfect excuse for missing matins on a Sunday morning: you are not a fish. As our parish church sits quietly on the seabed, part buried here, recognisable pieces of architecture there, perhaps a little buttress among the silvery bass swimming round the ruins beneath the waves, the memory of its existence adds to the sense of calm.
The house on the edge of the cliff was rented, but she had grown up in the area; and this is a book about much, much more than that one house and coastal erosion.
Each month’s journal records the world around her and considers a different subject. Some are clearly seasonal – there are winter storms, there is a summer night on the dunes, there is an attempt to create a crop circle – but there are others that simply reflect life in the country, and how some things have changed while others remain the same.
The writing is rich and evocative, and it is also clear-sighted about the practical realities of living on the east coast and the prospects for the future. The coastal area that Juliet Blaxland knows and loves is in many ways different to my coastal home, but her writing has allowed me to come to know it well and to understand the depth of her feelings for the place she calls home.
Her thoughts were wonderfully wide-ranging, she found so many different things to write about, but themes recurred: the acceptance that nature cannot always be controlled and that there are times when it much be allowed to go its own way; the the increasing speed of change and the importance of considering its consequences; and the ultimate realisation that even the longest of human lives is insignificant when compare with the lifetime of the setting of those lives.
Sometimes my interest dipped a little, the quality of the writing was a little variable, but I was always engaged.
I loved her voice, I loved that she was able to see beauty and charm in simple, everyday that many people wouldn’t notice, and I particularly loved that she saw hope for the future in the power of nature and the knowledge that tides must always turn.
The physical book is a lovely thing, and it caught my eye in my local bookshop before it was first long-listed and then short-listed for the Wainwright Prize. I was delighted to see that progression, and I would be happy to see it progress one step further ….
Its final words are, inevitably, elegaic:
When our part of this nature-wrought and romantic place goes, the memory of life here will go with it. Where once Chuffy the Brindle Greyhound bombed about the beach and Cockle the Cockerel gently heralded the dawn with his rural sounds, and our skyline hens laid beautiful blue eggs, and our vegetable garden thrived, and we loved the place so much, one day, where all that had been, there will only be a particular volume of sky over the sea which will hold all these memories in its air, and the people on the beach will not know.
And it catches those memories beautifully.
Juliet Blaxland’s house by the sea is rather less secure; and this book was sparked by a timely prompt, to which she responded:
The house on the edge of the cliff was demolished this week, which means we are now the house of the edge of the cliff.
She knows that her house will have to be demolished in a few years time, because the soft cliffs are crumbling under the relentless pressure of winds and tides, and so the land on which it stands will be undermined.
This memoir of one of the last years spent in the house of the edge of the cliff takes the form of a journal, and each month there is an image, a well chosen piece of poetry and prose, all of the details of seasonal produce and events that you would expect a countrywoman to record – and the distance from the edge of the cliff and its change from the previous month. In some months there was no change at all, in other months there were visible losses, and over the course of the year the distance fell from 24 to 19 metres.
The author wrote about that with wit and with grace.
will not find the church of St. Nicholas, Easton Bavents, in your Pevsner guide to the buildings of Suffolk, nor will you you feel guilty when you repeatedly fail to be present in your pew as a regular member of the congregation, for you have the perfect excuse for missing matins on a Sunday morning: you are not a fish. As our parish church sits quietly on the seabed, part buried here, recognisable pieces of architecture there, perhaps a little buttress among the silvery bass swimming round the ruins beneath the waves, the memory of its existence adds to the sense of calm.
The house on the edge of the cliff was rented, but she had grown up in the area; and this is a book about much, much more than that one house and coastal erosion.
Each month’s journal records the world around her and considers a different subject. Some are clearly seasonal – there are winter storms, there is a summer night on the dunes, there is an attempt to create a crop circle – but there are others that simply reflect life in the country, and how some things have changed while others remain the same.
The writing is rich and evocative, and it is also clear-sighted about the practical realities of living on the east coast and the prospects for the future. The coastal area that Juliet Blaxland knows and loves is in many ways different to my coastal home, but her writing has allowed me to come to know it well and to understand the depth of her feelings for the place she calls home.
Her thoughts were wonderfully wide-ranging, she found so many different things to write about, but themes recurred: the acceptance that nature cannot always be controlled and that there are times when it much be allowed to go its own way; the the increasing speed of change and the importance of considering its consequences; and the ultimate realisation that even the longest of human lives is insignificant when compare with the lifetime of the setting of those lives.
Sometimes my interest dipped a little, the quality of the writing was a little variable, but I was always engaged.
I loved her voice, I loved that she was able to see beauty and charm in simple, everyday that many people wouldn’t notice, and I particularly loved that she saw hope for the future in the power of nature and the knowledge that tides must always turn.
The physical book is a lovely thing, and it caught my eye in my local bookshop before it was first long-listed and then short-listed for the Wainwright Prize. I was delighted to see that progression, and I would be happy to see it progress one step further ….
Its final words are, inevitably, elegaic:
When our part of this nature-wrought and romantic place goes, the memory of life here will go with it. Where once Chuffy the Brindle Greyhound bombed about the beach and Cockle the Cockerel gently heralded the dawn with his rural sounds, and our skyline hens laid beautiful blue eggs, and our vegetable garden thrived, and we loved the place so much, one day, where all that had been, there will only be a particular volume of sky over the sea which will hold all these memories in its air, and the people on the beach will not know.
And it catches those memories beautifully.
April 12, 2020
I picked this up for my own research about coastal Suffolk and my heritage, but it's also a very current topic, as the Orfordness Lighthouse a few miles away was recently scheduled for demolition due to to the eroding coastline. There were lots of valuable snippets about local lore and nature in here. I especially liked the 'imagined Ligurian hills' as I've also always found parts of the county to have an almost Mediterranean look.
However, the persistent anti-vegan jibes and rants tainted it for me. The author treated "vegan" as shorthand for "Londoner who's into paleo, worships PETA, knows nothing about how we do things up here" and it was really embarrassing. I began to notice this haughty undertone to other parts of the book. It's a real shame because there are plenty of ways to address the challenges of supporting rural economy and ecology while acknowledging 21st-century ethical questions without your reader having to whip out their "trying to catch vegans out" bingo card.
However, the persistent anti-vegan jibes and rants tainted it for me. The author treated "vegan" as shorthand for "Londoner who's into paleo, worships PETA, knows nothing about how we do things up here" and it was really embarrassing. I began to notice this haughty undertone to other parts of the book. It's a real shame because there are plenty of ways to address the challenges of supporting rural economy and ecology while acknowledging 21st-century ethical questions without your reader having to whip out their "trying to catch vegans out" bingo card.
May 7, 2019
I have loved the sea and coast for as long as I can remember. Every day that you visit is different because one of the numerous factors has changed and I like the dynamics of the constantly changing light and tides. I would love to watch a winter storm from the cosy confines of a secure house too. However, for some people there is too much change where the land meets the sea. On the very eastern cost of our country, erosion of the soft cliffs there is happening at a dramatic rate
The house on the edge of the cliff was demolished this week, which means we are now the house on the edge of the cliff.
Juliet Blaxland is one of those living on this fast-changing coastline. Way back in time there used to be a village there and in 1666 the church succumbed to the waves. The battle between sea and land has continued until now. Back in June 2015, her house was 50 paces from the cliff edge. Now, it half that and getting closer year on year. One day their home will have to be demolished, they just don’t know when that day will be.
It is not just a book about the frightening rate of erosion, but about living a life in a place that she loves. Moves from wider contemplations on the rewilding of landscapes that mankind has realised that they cannot control to tiny details of day to day life and how that can affect our moods. She has come to understand that we are momentary beings on a transient planet; our three score and ten on this rock are nothing when compared to the lifetime of the Earth, though it saddens her with the way that is changing so rapidly.
I am not sure that I could live with that inevitable feeling that your home is going to one day fall into the sea, they can lose chunks as much 3m in one single storm. Those that wanted to live closer to the sea are suddenly much closer than they ever thought that they would be. However, Blaxland is quite philosophical about the whole thing. I really liked this book, Blaxland’s writing is evocative, whether she is writing about the roar of a storm, jugs of homemade Pimm’s or the attempt to create a crop circle. She has a deep love of the coastal landscape she inhabits. They still live there and will do until the bitter end.
The house on the edge of the cliff was demolished this week, which means we are now the house on the edge of the cliff.
Juliet Blaxland is one of those living on this fast-changing coastline. Way back in time there used to be a village there and in 1666 the church succumbed to the waves. The battle between sea and land has continued until now. Back in June 2015, her house was 50 paces from the cliff edge. Now, it half that and getting closer year on year. One day their home will have to be demolished, they just don’t know when that day will be.
It is not just a book about the frightening rate of erosion, but about living a life in a place that she loves. Moves from wider contemplations on the rewilding of landscapes that mankind has realised that they cannot control to tiny details of day to day life and how that can affect our moods. She has come to understand that we are momentary beings on a transient planet; our three score and ten on this rock are nothing when compared to the lifetime of the Earth, though it saddens her with the way that is changing so rapidly.
I am not sure that I could live with that inevitable feeling that your home is going to one day fall into the sea, they can lose chunks as much 3m in one single storm. Those that wanted to live closer to the sea are suddenly much closer than they ever thought that they would be. However, Blaxland is quite philosophical about the whole thing. I really liked this book, Blaxland’s writing is evocative, whether she is writing about the roar of a storm, jugs of homemade Pimm’s or the attempt to create a crop circle. She has a deep love of the coastal landscape she inhabits. They still live there and will do until the bitter end.
February 22, 2020
I grew up on Easton Bavents, the location of the Easternmost House. My grandmother lived on the top of that cliff for over 50 years, and I’m not sure a lot of what is described by the author would be recognisable to her. The assumed ownership of the landscape, the arrogant claims of being the planter of wild flowers which have flourished on that cliff top for decades, probably centuries before Juliet Blaxland shook a lupin over her hedge.
The whole book reeks of assumptive entitlement which is typical of those who have no real grasp of the work and life of those who have always lived in and around Southwold.
The author claims it’s quite normal for a lot of people in the area to own a light aircraft, which they and their friends can use on fanciful whims to photograph amateur crop circles...I mean, really? The picture painted is fantastical and whimsical; I can see the appeal in reading it from the POV of those who have no idea of the reality.
But for those of us with real experience (not growing up in piling houses, surrounded by horses - she’s come from money, let’s not forget that. Her Suffolk routes are a far cry from the majority of us) of Southwold and Reydon, if Easton Bavents...this book is a load of drivel.
I hope people find it a lot more enjoyable than I did, I really do. The conversational, dawdling tone draws you in at first, but the content I found condescending and unreflective of my experiences of a lot more than the 10 years enjoyed by Blaxland.
This is just my opinion though, based on my experiences.
As a postscript- please be assured that there are A LOT of people in the area who do not support, and never have supported, blood sports. Blaxland makes it out that we’re all out peeping our brass at every opportunity. We’re not, even if she is.
The whole book reeks of assumptive entitlement which is typical of those who have no real grasp of the work and life of those who have always lived in and around Southwold.
The author claims it’s quite normal for a lot of people in the area to own a light aircraft, which they and their friends can use on fanciful whims to photograph amateur crop circles...I mean, really? The picture painted is fantastical and whimsical; I can see the appeal in reading it from the POV of those who have no idea of the reality.
But for those of us with real experience (not growing up in piling houses, surrounded by horses - she’s come from money, let’s not forget that. Her Suffolk routes are a far cry from the majority of us) of Southwold and Reydon, if Easton Bavents...this book is a load of drivel.
I hope people find it a lot more enjoyable than I did, I really do. The conversational, dawdling tone draws you in at first, but the content I found condescending and unreflective of my experiences of a lot more than the 10 years enjoyed by Blaxland.
This is just my opinion though, based on my experiences.
As a postscript- please be assured that there are A LOT of people in the area who do not support, and never have supported, blood sports. Blaxland makes it out that we’re all out peeping our brass at every opportunity. We’re not, even if she is.
December 16, 2019
Taking her inspiration from Henry Beston’s The Outermost House, a classic of American nature writing, Blaxland, an architect, writes about a typical year in her life on the very edge of Suffolk. Her house is doomed, she knows: the village church fell into the sea some 300 years ago and the cliff has been eroding steadily ever since, with occasional storms and flooding bringing the crisis nearer. (You can get updates on the house via her Twitter account, @JulietBlaxland.)
In general I enjoy reading about small-town life and the rhythms of the seasons, so there were elements of this month-by-month diary that I liked. Blaxland writes about salvaging washed-up timber, leading boat tours in the summer, creating a crop circle, harvesting the barley to go to a local brewery, and so on. But there are also off-topic and redundant musings. May, for instance, is almost exclusively about the ethics of eating meat. (“Food is our modern moral minefield, a labyrinth, a rabbit hole from which you can never escape, even if you go vegan.”) Although I’m sympathetic to her arguments, I felt this book wasn’t the place for them. And then September was particularly repetitive, with many references to the golden summers and stubble burning of her past.
I appreciated the elegiac tone and the way the author is able to take the long view of her village’s life, but the book as a whole is scattered (and also noticeably poorly edited – e.g. “our” in place of “are” made it past a proofreader!).
A favorite line: “The Adshop is possibly the only photocopy shop in the world where customers are given gigantic free courgettes with their photocopies during the courgette-glut season.”
In general I enjoy reading about small-town life and the rhythms of the seasons, so there were elements of this month-by-month diary that I liked. Blaxland writes about salvaging washed-up timber, leading boat tours in the summer, creating a crop circle, harvesting the barley to go to a local brewery, and so on. But there are also off-topic and redundant musings. May, for instance, is almost exclusively about the ethics of eating meat. (“Food is our modern moral minefield, a labyrinth, a rabbit hole from which you can never escape, even if you go vegan.”) Although I’m sympathetic to her arguments, I felt this book wasn’t the place for them. And then September was particularly repetitive, with many references to the golden summers and stubble burning of her past.
I appreciated the elegiac tone and the way the author is able to take the long view of her village’s life, but the book as a whole is scattered (and also noticeably poorly edited – e.g. “our” in place of “are” made it past a proofreader!).
A favorite line: “The Adshop is possibly the only photocopy shop in the world where customers are given gigantic free courgettes with their photocopies during the courgette-glut season.”
July 1, 2019
As the title says, this book is about the last house in Easton Bavants, a village which has gradually vanished over the cliffs in Suffolk. It chronicles a year in the lives of the occupants as they watch their land disappearing. It was an interesting book, serious but also humerous, very resigned to their fate. Not so sure I would have been quite so relaxed about the inevitable.
July 19, 2021
I am very torn about this book. On the one hand, the language is beautiful and evocative. I merely had to close my eyes to find myself standing on a cliff face, with a sea of waves underneath me and a sea of stars above. The division of the chapters into months, complete with in-season vegetables and game, was a lovely way to structure the story.
However, this read more like snippets of a memoir about country living than a book about the dangers and thrills of living on a clifftop that is slowly but steadily disappearing into the sea. Which would have been perfectly fine, if it hadn’t been for the (more than) occasional jabs at - amongst other things - vegans, people who live in cities, boycotting palm oil (?), tourists and almond milk, which, quite frankly, made me roll my eyes every time. I suppose I expected a bit more from a story about rising sea levels threatening the land than the conclusion that ‘opposition to and apathy towards tweed and the wearers of tweed’ is one of the greatest threats the English countryside currently faces.
However, this read more like snippets of a memoir about country living than a book about the dangers and thrills of living on a clifftop that is slowly but steadily disappearing into the sea. Which would have been perfectly fine, if it hadn’t been for the (more than) occasional jabs at - amongst other things - vegans, people who live in cities, boycotting palm oil (?), tourists and almond milk, which, quite frankly, made me roll my eyes every time. I suppose I expected a bit more from a story about rising sea levels threatening the land than the conclusion that ‘opposition to and apathy towards tweed and the wearers of tweed’ is one of the greatest threats the English countryside currently faces.
February 17, 2020
Urgh. If you’re considering this because you enjoyed the likes of The Outrun or H is for Hawk then do yourselves a favour and pick up something by Kathleen Jamie instead. This is a essentially a collection of Daily Telegraph columns masquerading as a book. It is banal and repetitious. The author seems to be on the verge of coining the hashtag #tweedlivesmatter. It’s chock full of unexamined privilege (and by typing those words I’ve doubtless joined the ranks of Twitter warriors that she rails against in every chapter instead of, like, writing about life in the east.) but also just incredibly dull.
Having lived in Norfolk for 4 years, I’m unsurprised that this was written by someone who lives practically in Southwold. Skip Southwold and go to Cromer, friends, so much less pretentious.
Having lived in Norfolk for 4 years, I’m unsurprised that this was written by someone who lives practically in Southwold. Skip Southwold and go to Cromer, friends, so much less pretentious.
August 15, 2020
The Easternmost House in Suffolk is under severe threat due to The coastal erosion. During a year observations are made of seasons, weather, life in a remote area and so much more. Beautifully written with inclusions of poems and gold nuggets of wisdom around how our values have changed and the impact on our lives today.
May 12, 2023
A sort of memoir of a person (although she keeps you at arm's length), memoir of a house, ambling, bumbling reflection on the south east coastal nature of Suffolk. Blaxland lives in a house about 20 metres from a crumbling coast, knowing in the next few years they will have to move out for their own safety and the house demolished. So she ambles through 12 months, with current goings on, memories and anecdotes, as a kind of a collected memory of the life there for when it is gone. And as she reflects herself, there is some connection to our own lives, and the finite composition of them. With this house they can see the edge of the cliff getting closer and closer. Not that anything is permanent but what must it be to live with something knowing so obviously that it's days are numbered?
There are some interesting reflections and anecdotes. I particularly enjoyed the crop circle construction, with the farmer taking their failure as evidence that aliens must exist. And mention of this eccentric little abandoned cottage by the sea with the left remains of a genius's life there, a man folk just assumed to be nuts and nothing more for his habit of running about the graveyard part naked.
And there were other moments when I didn't take to her. This is the privileged, class system-loving home counties style of countryside (and not the only type of rural society) who can get very defensive and on the attack to anyone who doesn't like hound hunting, private land, animal farming etc etc... and well the townies wouldn't understand country folk... and then in the next breath say we shouldn't divide into town and country. I also feel uncomfortable reading that all these so called country essentials like pony club and hound hunting shouldn't be disturbed for the sake of managing nature for its own good. We who don't know better shouldn't question or wonder if there is another way. A lot of what she mentions is also the class system at play in the country. Oh, I don't disagree on some elements that the natural landscape we know is managed and sustained by certain practices such as types of farming, forestry management etc, and that people should be OK with where their food come from, be more with nature, slow down etc etc - although we don't all have that privilege of being able to live right out in the country.
Interesting, with reflections I agreed with, some I didn't but ultimately I felt distanced from this and somehow put in my place as not being one of them.
For the curious, this book is now also history as the house is no more: https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/21406450....
There are some interesting reflections and anecdotes. I particularly enjoyed the crop circle construction, with the farmer taking their failure as evidence that aliens must exist. And mention of this eccentric little abandoned cottage by the sea with the left remains of a genius's life there, a man folk just assumed to be nuts and nothing more for his habit of running about the graveyard part naked.
And there were other moments when I didn't take to her. This is the privileged, class system-loving home counties style of countryside (and not the only type of rural society) who can get very defensive and on the attack to anyone who doesn't like hound hunting, private land, animal farming etc etc... and well the townies wouldn't understand country folk... and then in the next breath say we shouldn't divide into town and country. I also feel uncomfortable reading that all these so called country essentials like pony club and hound hunting shouldn't be disturbed for the sake of managing nature for its own good. We who don't know better shouldn't question or wonder if there is another way. A lot of what she mentions is also the class system at play in the country. Oh, I don't disagree on some elements that the natural landscape we know is managed and sustained by certain practices such as types of farming, forestry management etc, and that people should be OK with where their food come from, be more with nature, slow down etc etc - although we don't all have that privilege of being able to live right out in the country.
Interesting, with reflections I agreed with, some I didn't but ultimately I felt distanced from this and somehow put in my place as not being one of them.
For the curious, this book is now also history as the house is no more: https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/21406450....
July 5, 2020
DNF. Attractive-sounding content, month-by-month structure good idea, but writing is poor and thinking muddled.
August 31, 2019
We should all try to live in the countryside once in our lives. There is a growing ‘disconnection’ between town and country(side) and many misinformed ideas of what it means to be a farmer, keeper, hunter or fisherman by those who have never tried either. Blaxland shows us the harmony that exists in the English countryside – a harmony where there’s respect and love for nature, but where farming and hunting and fishing are still the basis of livelihood. Being pro- or anti-hunting here is not a thing. Hunting is a part of life, and it’s ridiculous to even consider the alternative. It just is. And there is no cruelty in it. Nor in the farming, the fishing, the culling of herds either.
Us ‘towners’ don’t know how the living, working British countryside and landscape works – and it is so easy to sit on our behinds all day and judge and condemn.* Blaxland places some emphasis on the somewhat twisted relationship many of us have with meat; we don’t mind going to the supermarket and buying packets and packets of meat, yet many would find it barbaric to see a deer being skinned or a hen being plucked or what have you (even if said deer or hen had had a good, long wild/semi-wild life). Personally, I am of the opinion that if you couldn’t kill/skin the animal yourself (and I’m talking about morals, not skills, here – of course you can’t actually kill or skin anything if you don’t know how) then you don’t deserve the meat. Think Ned Stark’s advice in Game of Thrones: if you can sentence someone to death, you should be able to carry out the sentence yourself.
Her style is straightforward and matter of fact, which I always like, and she was witty to boot. The writing reminds me a lot of John Lewis-Stempel (who still does it better, though). If the language is too flowery and metaphor-heavy, you lose me. Nature is poetic and beautiful, but it is also matter of fact. In fact, I would argue that it is poetic and beautiful because it is straightforward and matter of fact. It is also a book mainly of hope for the world rather than doom, though ‘doom’ is all their existence is, living on the edge of an eroding cliff. That was a nice change.
I enjoyed this, and even more the further I got, but it lacked a little something. I’m not sure exactly what, but I was missing the thrilling feeling I get when I read a really good nature book. There were also many repetitions that I think the editor should’ve picked up on – e.g., the fact that their house/land was sold by the larger estate to pay for death duties was mentioned and presented as new info no less than three times throughout the book. Nonetheless, this is a book that will make you think about things you had probably not considered before, and I learned a lot from it.
Rating: 3.75
*Vegetarians should be warned before reading a certain part of the book: you may either need to go full vegan or go back to eating meat after having read it.
Us ‘towners’ don’t know how the living, working British countryside and landscape works – and it is so easy to sit on our behinds all day and judge and condemn.* Blaxland places some emphasis on the somewhat twisted relationship many of us have with meat; we don’t mind going to the supermarket and buying packets and packets of meat, yet many would find it barbaric to see a deer being skinned or a hen being plucked or what have you (even if said deer or hen had had a good, long wild/semi-wild life). Personally, I am of the opinion that if you couldn’t kill/skin the animal yourself (and I’m talking about morals, not skills, here – of course you can’t actually kill or skin anything if you don’t know how) then you don’t deserve the meat. Think Ned Stark’s advice in Game of Thrones: if you can sentence someone to death, you should be able to carry out the sentence yourself.
Her style is straightforward and matter of fact, which I always like, and she was witty to boot. The writing reminds me a lot of John Lewis-Stempel (who still does it better, though). If the language is too flowery and metaphor-heavy, you lose me. Nature is poetic and beautiful, but it is also matter of fact. In fact, I would argue that it is poetic and beautiful because it is straightforward and matter of fact. It is also a book mainly of hope for the world rather than doom, though ‘doom’ is all their existence is, living on the edge of an eroding cliff. That was a nice change.
I enjoyed this, and even more the further I got, but it lacked a little something. I’m not sure exactly what, but I was missing the thrilling feeling I get when I read a really good nature book. There were also many repetitions that I think the editor should’ve picked up on – e.g., the fact that their house/land was sold by the larger estate to pay for death duties was mentioned and presented as new info no less than three times throughout the book. Nonetheless, this is a book that will make you think about things you had probably not considered before, and I learned a lot from it.
Rating: 3.75
*Vegetarians should be warned before reading a certain part of the book: you may either need to go full vegan or go back to eating meat after having read it.
May 16, 2019
A truly thought provoking record of life.
I am not maturely sensitive and my dreams are usually practical. This book has taught me another dimension of sensitive observation and thought and relates to a geographical area that I know. I look forward to rambles, even as an outsider, equipped with greater knowledge.
Although the book tells a very local story there is very much more on offer to contemplate and offers the chance to revisit personal preconceived ideas. Thank you.
I read a digital version of this book. I will now buy the hard copy version and add it to my collection of venerated books to be shared and dipped into from time to time.
I am not maturely sensitive and my dreams are usually practical. This book has taught me another dimension of sensitive observation and thought and relates to a geographical area that I know. I look forward to rambles, even as an outsider, equipped with greater knowledge.
Although the book tells a very local story there is very much more on offer to contemplate and offers the chance to revisit personal preconceived ideas. Thank you.
I read a digital version of this book. I will now buy the hard copy version and add it to my collection of venerated books to be shared and dipped into from time to time.
March 13, 2025
In the first of the modern heatwave summers of 1976, while we were exploring the sandy heaths around Aldeburgh, I remember my father telling me beware of the adders. I was forever on that holiday keeping fully alert for them and fortunately didn't see one.
It was with some interest therefore that I wondered whether vipers might pop up in The Easternmost House, Juliet Blaxland's account of a month by months's life in the endangered rural idyll of east Suffolk. Not just east Suffolk - but right on the edge of east Suffolk in a house just metres away from the crumbling cliffs waiting to be swallowed by the greedy North Sea.
The actual house is at Easton Bavents, which, with nearby Covehithe, is going the same way as Dunwich did.
Snakes get three mentions, two brief and the third a detailed description of different species which she has witnessed and which are frightening the owner of a vineyard. The author relates how she herself saw one curled up into the size of a football and writes of the vineyard owner being confronted by a snake which slithered into her house, reared up and hissed at her while she was on the phone. She weaves it into another horrific tale of a snake and a baby which I won't reveal here, though I find it unbelievable.
The author revels in the plethora of animals she observes and lives amongst including her own and others' sightings of the rare white hart, of which she has seen more than one. She write that stalkers always preserve white harts and white pheasants, cleverly adding how such artificial action boosts Darwin's theory. I never realised till I read this book that mole catchers hang the animals they've killed on the fences of the properties where they've been culled as invoice evidence for the owner to pay them.
The author paints frequent pictures of the rich experiences she's had of seeing and watching birds - geese flying in formation, starlings gathering in a scene reminiscent of Hitchcock's The Birds, gulls and many others though the absence of the cuckoo was interesting, possibly because it doesn't dwell in coastal areas. Helpfully she reveals how the RSPB culls foxes and other wild animals to safeguard bird populations, a fact, she writes, it doesn't publicise.
Plants and crops, as one would expect, also largely feature in the book, including the predominance of cow parsley in Covehithe, of which she took a photoand published it online. There's an entertaining piece on her attempt with others to create a corn circle in their bid to rubbish that they're the work of aliens. The result is interesting.
She brilliantly captures the glorious traditions, stories, characters and myths of this part of coastal Suffolk, between Southwold and Benacre. I particularly enjoyed her description of a remote "secret cottage" once owned by a Boo Radley like figure called Running Roberts, who ordered that after his death, it should not be developed or lived in. It is as he left it, "with a year's supply of out of date instant coffee and tinned pies," if anyone can find it.
As the reader might expect, the weather is a constant theme of the book including a wonderful description of seeing lightning light up the North Sea in the dead of night, as if it was daylight. Seen from inside the easternmost house, it's the one thing I'd liked to have read more of in the book - what life is like in the actual house as coastal erosion ebbs ever closer. However there is a superb description of her sheltering in the house from the worst of all winds - the easterly wind as she cosies up to BBC Radio 4's shipping forecast, knowing she's safe while others face peril on the sea.
Throughout the book there's a tension between her and neighbours' rural life and the urbanites. Whether it's absent second home owners, vegans rampant against livestock farming, the glorious silence of Suffolk rural countryside that is totally absent to the endless noise tolerated by city folk, it comes to a head in the final pages of the book. Early on in the book she writes how times have changed, "give a man a fish finger and that is perfectly fine. Teach a man to fish, and he becomes an evil fish-murderer." It's something I recognise, knowing people who shudder if there's a bone or even skin on the chicken presented to them in a plate. She adds that much of the Suffolk rural way of life and landscape is based on animal husbandry and food production, which would all be lost if a vegan way of life took hold. Almost overnight marsh grazing cattle and free range pigs would be no more, and "we might have to import soya and pulses to replace it." Towards the end of the book, the author spells out the threat to countryside folk and the livelihoods, pastimes and pleasures they've practiced and enjoyed since ancient times from growing voices of opposition to sheep and dairy farming, legal hunting and shooting, even "antipathy towards tweed and the wearers of tweed." It is this cultural erosion, she argues, that is perhaps more damaging in the long term than coastal erosion.
Yet, a few pages on the author, citing maps of the future showing sea level rise, launches into an apocalyptic vision of how the North Sea will not only devour the Easternmost house but much of England, in fact right up to "the hard country, the stone, the Pennines." At the start of the book the Easternmost house was 24 metres from the cliff edge. At the end of the book, twelve months later, it is 19 metres away. The book was published in 2018. I've just read it in 2025. As I read the last page, I went online to see how close to the edge the house is now. It was demolished five years ago.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 27, 2020
Infuriatingly poorly edited and proofread (if at all).
May 28, 2024
No doubt the author would consider me an ignorant 'townie' for daring to leave a 2 star review., because her book makes it clear that anyone who does not agree with her on all points cannot possibly be a 'true' country person. And I fail on many counts. For a start, I didn't have the "character building privilege" of being given a silver mirror and a whalebone and leather hunting whip for my seventh birthday when I really wanted a plastic space hopper. I didn't go to boarding school And I've never been a member of the pony club. All prerequisites for being a true 'country person' in Blaxland's world...
Throughout the book, Blaxland proclaims that her way of rural life is the only right way, and I rapidly became fed up with her self-righteous attitude. She enjoys watching wildlife, but she does it the 'right' way, pouring scorn on those who use binoculars because they are "not observing this wonder of the natural world with complete immersion in the moment". She walks, but not like the "hard-pushing hiker or the rose-tinted rambler. We walk quite far, quite often, but always with some greater purpose..." Although the 'greater purpose' seems limited scavenging, beachcombing or walking the dog. She makes her own elderflower cordial (and no, you do not need citric acid to do so in spite of her insistence), but claims that nettle shampoo could only be used by "incomers and people down from London. I can't imagine real country people [for 'real country people' read 'Blaxland'] liking the idea of nettle shampoo." She claims that the reason she doesn't suffer from hayfever is because those who live and work in the countryside are "immune" (sadly, not true - I wish it was!) and says that "the need to keep earning might be the spur to uncanny levels of good health". Which is a real slap in the face to those struggling with both chronic ill health and poverty.
It's doubly frustrating because in the right hands, this book could have been really, really good. Blaxland does make some very helpful points about our impact on the world around us, and how even vegans still have to make tricky ethical judgements about things like palm oil and imported foods. Unfortunately, in spite of saying that people "are intelligent enough to come to their own conclusions about how to feed themselves, and where to draw their own personal lines in the shifting sands and moral mole hills, " she persists with ridiculing and patronising anyone who disagrees with her, which is very unlikely to win anyone over.
Much of the book is given over to her concern at the 'disconnect' between town and country. Sadly, she doesn't seem to realise how her 'upper class country toff' attitude is only going to perpetuate that divide, not heal it.
For the rest, the writing is muddled, often repetitive and frequently confused. The blurb's claim that it deals with coastal erosion and the changing seasons seems to be limited to each chapter header, which lists foods in season and how much of the cliff has eroded in the past month. While some passages are beautiful, it does suffer from her frequent references to 'Ring of Bright Water' and 'The Outermost House'. It's not a good idea to claim a couple of nature classics as the "ancestors" of your own book, since it invites comparison of your prose with theirs.
2 stars for the handful of helpful paragraphs and the truly beautiful cover. But if you are seeking to understand the countryside better, please don't start here.
Throughout the book, Blaxland proclaims that her way of rural life is the only right way, and I rapidly became fed up with her self-righteous attitude. She enjoys watching wildlife, but she does it the 'right' way, pouring scorn on those who use binoculars because they are "not observing this wonder of the natural world with complete immersion in the moment". She walks, but not like the "hard-pushing hiker or the rose-tinted rambler. We walk quite far, quite often, but always with some greater purpose..." Although the 'greater purpose' seems limited scavenging, beachcombing or walking the dog. She makes her own elderflower cordial (and no, you do not need citric acid to do so in spite of her insistence), but claims that nettle shampoo could only be used by "incomers and people down from London. I can't imagine real country people [for 'real country people' read 'Blaxland'] liking the idea of nettle shampoo." She claims that the reason she doesn't suffer from hayfever is because those who live and work in the countryside are "immune" (sadly, not true - I wish it was!) and says that "the need to keep earning might be the spur to uncanny levels of good health". Which is a real slap in the face to those struggling with both chronic ill health and poverty.
It's doubly frustrating because in the right hands, this book could have been really, really good. Blaxland does make some very helpful points about our impact on the world around us, and how even vegans still have to make tricky ethical judgements about things like palm oil and imported foods. Unfortunately, in spite of saying that people "are intelligent enough to come to their own conclusions about how to feed themselves, and where to draw their own personal lines in the shifting sands and moral mole hills, " she persists with ridiculing and patronising anyone who disagrees with her, which is very unlikely to win anyone over.
Much of the book is given over to her concern at the 'disconnect' between town and country. Sadly, she doesn't seem to realise how her 'upper class country toff' attitude is only going to perpetuate that divide, not heal it.
For the rest, the writing is muddled, often repetitive and frequently confused. The blurb's claim that it deals with coastal erosion and the changing seasons seems to be limited to each chapter header, which lists foods in season and how much of the cliff has eroded in the past month. While some passages are beautiful, it does suffer from her frequent references to 'Ring of Bright Water' and 'The Outermost House'. It's not a good idea to claim a couple of nature classics as the "ancestors" of your own book, since it invites comparison of your prose with theirs.
2 stars for the handful of helpful paragraphs and the truly beautiful cover. But if you are seeking to understand the countryside better, please don't start here.
March 13, 2020
If I could have given this book six stars I would have done. I absolutely loved it. The descriptions, the prose, the evocative images of life on the very edge of the Suffolk coast all combined to make this one of my favourite reads in a long time.
It begins with a description of coastal erosion. The house at the edge of the cliff had been lost to the elements leaving the authors house, The Easternmost House, as the new ‘house at the edge of the cliff’. It’s a book of wild nature, rural life at it’s most precarious and fundamental, and of coastal tragedies that live long in the collective memories of the local communities. There are tales of the beauty and danger of life literally lived on the edge with dramatic thunderstorms, local landmarks washed away, treacherous estuaries, and starry skies. There is also what the sea gives back in the form of timber from old shipwrecks, and other flotsam and jetsam washed up on the beaches.
This is a book about the harshness of nature and life on the land, and there are some passages which make uncomfortable reading. Passionate vegans in particular should be wary. But it’s possibly a book that should be read by everyone. It captures what the author describes as the ‘disconnect’ between past lives and how we live now, between urban and rural lives, and how we ignore nature at our peril. Anyone who cares - or claims to care - about the environment should put down their mobile gadgets and pick up a copy of this book.
At under 250 pages this is not a long book, but nor is it a book to be read quickly. Every word needs to be savoured. I don’t know the area where it is set, but I could vividly imagine the landscape and practically taste the salt on my tongue. This book deserves to be a modern classic.
It begins with a description of coastal erosion. The house at the edge of the cliff had been lost to the elements leaving the authors house, The Easternmost House, as the new ‘house at the edge of the cliff’. It’s a book of wild nature, rural life at it’s most precarious and fundamental, and of coastal tragedies that live long in the collective memories of the local communities. There are tales of the beauty and danger of life literally lived on the edge with dramatic thunderstorms, local landmarks washed away, treacherous estuaries, and starry skies. There is also what the sea gives back in the form of timber from old shipwrecks, and other flotsam and jetsam washed up on the beaches.
This is a book about the harshness of nature and life on the land, and there are some passages which make uncomfortable reading. Passionate vegans in particular should be wary. But it’s possibly a book that should be read by everyone. It captures what the author describes as the ‘disconnect’ between past lives and how we live now, between urban and rural lives, and how we ignore nature at our peril. Anyone who cares - or claims to care - about the environment should put down their mobile gadgets and pick up a copy of this book.
At under 250 pages this is not a long book, but nor is it a book to be read quickly. Every word needs to be savoured. I don’t know the area where it is set, but I could vividly imagine the landscape and practically taste the salt on my tongue. This book deserves to be a modern classic.
January 12, 2020
As I have visited the Suffolk coast several times in recent years, I decided to read 'The Easternmost House'. Juliet Blaxland details her rural life at Easton Bavents as, due to coastal erosion, the sea increasingly endangers her house. The novel is divided into twelve chapters, each representing a month; the chapters begin with a quotation and photograph and then conclude with the "Food in season and local 'sea status' update".
Through close scrutiny of the surrounding countryside and amusing anecdotes of everyday life, Blaxland's narration appears both informed and familiar. The description of Suffolk is incredibly immersive, and the presentation of twelve months illustrates the landscape's transformation throughout the year. Blaxland's comments concerning plastics, climate change and veganism are far less prevalent than some reviews suggest, though these points do occasionally appear intrusive and unnecessary. Nevertheless, 'The Easternmost House' remains a brilliant and thought-provoking depiction of the Suffolk coast - to again envisage the region in such captivating detail, I will certainly return to this novel.
Rating: 4.3/5
Through close scrutiny of the surrounding countryside and amusing anecdotes of everyday life, Blaxland's narration appears both informed and familiar. The description of Suffolk is incredibly immersive, and the presentation of twelve months illustrates the landscape's transformation throughout the year. Blaxland's comments concerning plastics, climate change and veganism are far less prevalent than some reviews suggest, though these points do occasionally appear intrusive and unnecessary. Nevertheless, 'The Easternmost House' remains a brilliant and thought-provoking depiction of the Suffolk coast - to again envisage the region in such captivating detail, I will certainly return to this novel.
Rating: 4.3/5
November 16, 2019
This was another in a long line of books that I LOVE but probably won’t pass along because I’m pretty sure most people I know don’t read Quiet, introspective, philosophical books about nature in the UK... but it’s my ‘thing’.
The Easternmost house sits on the very eastern shore (the pigs butt if you’re looking at a map and picturing a witch riding on a pig) of England atop a crumbling storm battered cliff. Blaxland tells her story in 12 chapters named for the months of the year and telling stories of life, both physical and of the mind, during those months of the year.
I was very moved - sometimes to laughter, sometimes to tears - by the beautiful language of this book.
If that’s ‘your thing’ too you will certainly enjoy this book!!
The Easternmost house sits on the very eastern shore (the pigs butt if you’re looking at a map and picturing a witch riding on a pig) of England atop a crumbling storm battered cliff. Blaxland tells her story in 12 chapters named for the months of the year and telling stories of life, both physical and of the mind, during those months of the year.
I was very moved - sometimes to laughter, sometimes to tears - by the beautiful language of this book.
If that’s ‘your thing’ too you will certainly enjoy this book!!
January 12, 2020
I found reading about the eroding eastern coastline in the UK fascinating. I did spend time looking up various unfamiliar animals and terms that were distinctly British, but Blaxland's description of the quiet and the natural sounds and sights in her Suffolk landscape was comforting, especially in light of the rapid coastal erosion that is taking place literally outside her door. Her discussion of town vs. country, is a thoughtful one and her comment that "a cliff edge is coming" towards all of us, in one fashion or another, is a comment worth pondering and discussing. I loved her wish that tourists on a boating excursions toss their devices aside and stop ignoring the world around them, rather than trying to take countless photos and selfies.
June 14, 2021
On balance, John Lewis-Stempel's quote on the cover, "destined to be a 21st century classic. Just brilliant" is a fair statement. The book is informative, interesting, atmospheric and makes some good suggestions. However, there are things that niggle too. At one point very early on, I was convinced that I had read those pages before. Flipping back, I discovered that I had not, but that there was a lot of repetition. Then at the beginning of chapter 4 the author takes issue with repetition in a poem! Elsewhere she shows a certain amount of restraint in the way she details her frustration at generalisations made about rural life, but then goes on to make several of her own, particularly about the Bible. Nevertheless, overall an excellent book which I can recommend.
January 26, 2020
I loved this gentle meditation on rural life, viewed month by month, by a woman who lives in a house by an eroding cliff in Suffolk. I know the area in this book well, having lived nearby for five years in my youth, and even know people that the author mentions.
This is a lovely part of the world, but it is crumbling into the sea and while it's a reasonably benign place to visit in summer, it is wild and elemental in the winter, made more so by the sea's relentless progress. We who live in urban and suburban places are becoming less and connected to the land and there is an us vs. them mentality about city and country folk. I share the author's concern about this.
This is a lovely part of the world, but it is crumbling into the sea and while it's a reasonably benign place to visit in summer, it is wild and elemental in the winter, made more so by the sea's relentless progress. We who live in urban and suburban places are becoming less and connected to the land and there is an us vs. them mentality about city and country folk. I share the author's concern about this.
February 4, 2022
I struggled to finish this book - slim as it is. There are some lovely descriptions of the location. Of the coast and life in close proximity to the sea. But it’s repetitive and random. And peppered with the author’s very personal opinions on a range of topics, none of which are really supported. It felt like being out for a lovely walk, bumping into an irritating and opinionated acquaintance, and walking on feeling out of sorts. I can’t think of anyone I would pass this onto and wish I hadn’t been seduced by the cover. 21st century classic? I really don’t think so. Masses of better books about place.
August 27, 2021
I started off really enjoying this book with its description of the Suffolk countryside and the nuances of life for people there. However, the authors clearly anti-vegan, anti-city views really started to annoy me. The book clearly aims to describe the beauty of the English countryside side for all to know whilst it also feeling very much like she wanted to separate the city-us from the country-them. I also don’t think that some of the statements of what people in the countryside are all like are actually very accurate.
March 10, 2025
I really enjoyed this book and it made me feel homesick for the Suffolk coastline where my family members live. It painted a great picture of the surrounding landscape and I enjoyed the way the book was broken into months of the year. I can understand why some readers have found the attitude to ‘townies’ expressed by the author annoying, but personally (as a vegetarian who lives in a town) I found it really interesting hearing a different perspective. For me this was an enjoyable book to dip in and out of and I’m pleased I read it!
June 27, 2022
Blaxland's voice is loud in this book - rightly so, as it's all about her house and a year living in it. She's forthright and opinionated, giving lots of fodder for opposing views, spectrums of agreement and healthy debate. The book is wide in scope - giving us a taster of the microcosm of wildlife, sky, characters and the rhythm of country life as she waits of the cliff to recede and her home to be taken by the sea.
April 27, 2025
I was a little disappointed with this. It was described as a year of living in the house but increasingly became a series of opinions on how people don’t understand rural life or farming. Amongst this was an argument against veganism which stated that eating meat was more environmentally friendly because it made best use of the resources on your doorstep, fully missing the point that most of us don’t have these plentiful and well-husbanded resources on our doorstep
March 5, 2020
There’s so much more to this book than a description of how a crumbling cliff threatens the existence of a house. The surrounding countryside, weather, society, flora and fauna are so vivid you can see them. Sad to learn that the house was demolished recently. A lyrical book, enhanced with small seasonal photos of the area.
June 12, 2020
An interesting account of country and costal life set against the backdrop of the ever eroding cliff top upon which the author lives. A mixture of a defence of the ‘old ways’ with a recognition that nothing stays still. Challenges some of the more idealistic ‘vegan ideals’ with a personal and practical view of maintaining and enhancing the countryside environment.
August 3, 2020
I absolutely loved reading this simple and evocative account of living with the threat of the sea eating away at the cliff below your home. The descriptions of Suffolk life and landscape resonated, and the pace was just right for me. Easy to read, but infused with a quiet passion for such a unique place.
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