PICTURE THE SETTING WITH DAVID HODGES
The Somerset Levels are situated in the southwest of England in the county of Somerset, occupying an area of around 160,000 acres between the Mendip and Quantock Hills, and south of the growing town of Cheddar, famous for its cheddar cheese and cider-making ‘industries’. Outside the busy towns of Bridgwater, Street and legendary Glastonbury — with its ancient abbey, mystical mediaeval past and the nearby site of the annual Glastonbury Festival — it comprises a largely flat, sparsely populated rural area, where remnants of ancient trackways have been found, pointing to occupation by prehistoric communities many thousands of years ago.
Much of the Levels are covered by peat beds and marshland, where peat extraction was once an important industry. Referred to as the wetlands, they are prone to heavy flooding and, for this reason, are criss-crossed by a latticework of man-made drainage ditches or rhynes, often bordered by lines of willow trees, which are regularly subject to pollarding and used in the manufacture of ancient crafts, like wicker work.
The Levels are also an absolute haven for wildlife, particularly the tremendous variety of marshland birds who call it home, with nothing more thrilling for the wayfarer than the thud of large wings as a heron takes off from among the reeds just feet away or when a bittern sends its booming cry through the skeins of swirling white mist. And for drama, nothing can equal the spectacular murmurations during the winter months, as thousands of starlings perform their breathtaking displays on the approach of dusk.
For the imaginative, the Levels are a wild secret place, with a brooding stillness, which is often shrouded in mist and steeped in tales of witches and folkore, such as the Woman of the Mist (or Night Hag) and the hinky punks — the will-o-the-wisps said to lure the curious off the beaten track into the fatal embrace of the treacherous peat bogs that are always lying in wait.
The Somerset Levels have something for anyone with a receptive soul and what crime novelist could not be inspired by its timeless mystery and evocative atmosphere.