Rocks and Rivers: A Birds’s Eye View of the West Country

Aerial photographs by Patrick Roach. The South coasts of Devon and Cornwall are the first or the last many mariner has of England. Whether running up-channel, bound east for London and Northern Europe, or beating ever westwards out into the stormy Atlantic, these shores have been a haven, a guide, and occasionally, the source of ruin. All we who have made the traverse or have sought shelter in the multitude of harbours between Portland Bill and the Isles of Scilly, have had to carry out our pilotage from the decks of a vessel of some sort. How often we have longed for the wings of a sea eagle, to see what we cannot see. Powered flight has finally given us this chance, and Patrick Roach, the maestro of the airbourne camera has so excelled himself with this series of images that our mutual friend the publisher has had little choice but to bind us into one volume to share the wonders he has revealed. So stretch out your wings, give a wild seagull’s cry, and let’s take to the skies together, bound out for the far west.