What do you think?
Rate this book
Lost to the Sea: A Journey Round the Edges of Britain and Ireland
Medieval kingdoms. Notorious pirate towns. Drowned churches. Crocodile-infested swamps.
On a series of coastal walks, Lisa Woollett takes us on an illuminating journey, bringing to life the places where mythology and reality meet at the very edges of Britain and Ireland.
From Bronze Age settlements on the Isles of Scilly and submerged prehistoric forests in Wales, to a Victorian amusement park on the Isle of Wight and castles in the air off County Clare, Lisa draws together archaeology, meetings with locals and tales from folklore to reveal how the sea has forged, shaped and often overwhelmed these landscapes and communities.
Lost to the Sea is an exhilarating voyage around the ever-shifting shores of the British Isles, and a haunting ode to our profound relationship with the sea.
On a series of coastal walks, Lisa Woollett takes us on an illuminating journey, bringing to life the places where mythology and reality meet at the very edges of Britain and Ireland.
From Bronze Age settlements on the Isles of Scilly and submerged prehistoric forests in Wales, to a Victorian amusement park on the Isle of Wight and castles in the air off County Clare, Lisa draws together archaeology, meetings with locals and tales from folklore to reveal how the sea has forged, shaped and often overwhelmed these landscapes and communities.
Lost to the Sea is an exhilarating voyage around the ever-shifting shores of the British Isles, and a haunting ode to our profound relationship with the sea.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published May 9, 2024
16 people are currently reading
274 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
August 24, 2024
Extremely fascinating read, exploring places around Britain and Ireland that have been lost to the sea, and in some cases from history itself.
December 16, 2025
Admittedly I didn't enjoy this as much as Sea Journal or Sea and Shore Cornwall: Common and Curious Findings. Some of the chapters seemed a little repetitive and the grainy black and white photos didn't really do the landscapes Lisa was talking about much justice.
The book is a mix of paleontology, archaeology, environmental and marine science and miniature memoir/reminiscence . There were some parts that I enjoyed more than others. I had already read about the area known as Doggerland in Time Song: Searching for Doggerland so the information here was nothing new. I particularly liked the chapter on Dunwich, and learned some other random facts about parts of the UK coastline that I wasn't familiar with.
Overall a good read but the repetition and multiple pages discussing rates of coastal erosion got a little tiresome after a while.
The book is a mix of paleontology, archaeology, environmental and marine science and miniature memoir/reminiscence . There were some parts that I enjoyed more than others. I had already read about the area known as Doggerland in Time Song: Searching for Doggerland so the information here was nothing new. I particularly liked the chapter on Dunwich, and learned some other random facts about parts of the UK coastline that I wasn't familiar with.
Overall a good read but the repetition and multiple pages discussing rates of coastal erosion got a little tiresome after a while.
September 29, 2025
An interesting read. Packed full of information about Britain and its retreating coastlines. Lots of reference to modern day sea level rises in comparison to sea levels hundreds of years ago. A good read.
May 12, 2024
“Good grief. It was the strangest and most awe-inspiring place I'd ever been. And for more than a thousand years, it had been appearing as if by magic after storms, as the seething tide withdrew to reveal a forest standing in the sea.”
“Lost to the sea” is a book about a wide variety of topics, daisy-chained together by the ocean’s impact on them. It explores vanished geographies, traditional storytelling, archaeology, to name a few. A book with such a wide variety of themes could easily feel disjointed, but Woollett avoids this. Periodically and regularly, the author’s cool, almost soporific voice brings us back to the fundament: the ocean.
This was a non-fiction book in which the author was very present, in ways literal, positive and negative. Woollett speaks in the first person, narrating her experiences as she travels to meet people and to see phenomena for herself — her teenage daughter occasionally makes an appearance too. This is clearly a subject Woollett is passionate and knowledgeable about. She at times has a poet’s voice, even as she conveys information, which made this an accessible read and one with merits based even just on the prose. However, I felt she sometimes strayed into conjecture or wishful thinking, especially in the more anthropological sections.
Ultimately, I enjoyed this book. It was very gentle and easy to read, and made good bedtime reading. I would recommend it if you like prettily written books, or enjoy nature non-fiction.
(I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review!)
“Lost to the sea” is a book about a wide variety of topics, daisy-chained together by the ocean’s impact on them. It explores vanished geographies, traditional storytelling, archaeology, to name a few. A book with such a wide variety of themes could easily feel disjointed, but Woollett avoids this. Periodically and regularly, the author’s cool, almost soporific voice brings us back to the fundament: the ocean.
This was a non-fiction book in which the author was very present, in ways literal, positive and negative. Woollett speaks in the first person, narrating her experiences as she travels to meet people and to see phenomena for herself — her teenage daughter occasionally makes an appearance too. This is clearly a subject Woollett is passionate and knowledgeable about. She at times has a poet’s voice, even as she conveys information, which made this an accessible read and one with merits based even just on the prose. However, I felt she sometimes strayed into conjecture or wishful thinking, especially in the more anthropological sections.
Ultimately, I enjoyed this book. It was very gentle and easy to read, and made good bedtime reading. I would recommend it if you like prettily written books, or enjoy nature non-fiction.
(I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review!)
April 16, 2024
Galley provided by publisher
Lost to the Sea is an enjoyable trip around the British Isles finding places where, as the title suggests, a town, village, or other settlement has been lost to an encroaching sea. The book is a mix of Lisa Woollett's own travels to these places and historical background (actually much like the other book I read about flooded lands a couple of months back!). It was a pretty enjoyable read although, as with the aforementioned other book, I was more interested in the historical background and that research than the author's personal experiences. It was well-written, though, and definitely a book I'd recommend.
Lost to the Sea is an enjoyable trip around the British Isles finding places where, as the title suggests, a town, village, or other settlement has been lost to an encroaching sea. The book is a mix of Lisa Woollett's own travels to these places and historical background (actually much like the other book I read about flooded lands a couple of months back!). It was a pretty enjoyable read although, as with the aforementioned other book, I was more interested in the historical background and that research than the author's personal experiences. It was well-written, though, and definitely a book I'd recommend.
August 5, 2024
Awesome.
I would dearly love to read anything that might conjure more from the imagination than Lost to the Sea.
Travel back through time and marvel in former landscapes, people and places, somehow so ridiculously easy to picture, given by Lisa’s articulate and wondrous descriptive writing. Bringing true colour to a distant past that would otherwise remain covered in mud, sediment and sand, Lost to the Sea is brilliantly researched, and strangely haunting.
A journey through the blurred lines of myth and history, I would recommend this fascinating book to anyone. Absolutely loved it.
I would dearly love to read anything that might conjure more from the imagination than Lost to the Sea.
Travel back through time and marvel in former landscapes, people and places, somehow so ridiculously easy to picture, given by Lisa’s articulate and wondrous descriptive writing. Bringing true colour to a distant past that would otherwise remain covered in mud, sediment and sand, Lost to the Sea is brilliantly researched, and strangely haunting.
A journey through the blurred lines of myth and history, I would recommend this fascinating book to anyone. Absolutely loved it.
June 22, 2025
Excellent!
October 11, 2025
Pretty cool history! Moved slowly though.
November 21, 2025
A beautifully written and fascinating look at places lost to the sea. I found the chapter about Blackgang Chine in the Isle of Wight particularly interesting as I have been there but didn’t really know the history.
For me, this book had the perfect amount of historical facts sprinkled with some of the authors own experience.
For me, this book had the perfect amount of historical facts sprinkled with some of the authors own experience.
January 9, 2025
What a gorgeously wonderful, evocative and fascinating book. Melancholic too. A reminder that nothing stays the way it is forever, everything is changing. Some changes happen quick, some take years or centuries.
The coastline and the sea are such important themes for the UK and Ireland as we are island nations with very jagged coastlines. We have a lot of land to sea space. And as the coastline is liminal, always changing with the tides, and on that basis alone you'd think hard to map. But now think of the land that falls into the sea, or is simply utterly submerged, or being returned to salty marsh. Most of this is through natural occurrences, long-term climate changes of the planet, after effects of mega tsunamis (goodbye Doggerland), soft sandy land being battered by the sea. But in places, like the lost village of Hallsands in Devon, it's been drastically accelerated by human action with large scale gravel dredging in the local area. And climate change, rising sea levels etc etc are accelerating it all even more. As I sit and write this L.A. in the states is burning with some big scary wildfires. Not the first place in the world to be hit so hard, I think back over the last few years with north Africa, Australia, Canada and southern Europe.... the land we have mapped and think we know is being torn apart....
Ok, back to this book. It's a mix of history, folklore, travelogue, memoir, geography and nature. She takes 10 chapters and visits ten sites and tells their stories... yes, there are countless other worthy places she doesn't get to which would also have important stories to tell. But these are all interesting chapters. Ireland and mutton island, Wales and this village where the land seems to be inevitably going back to a kind of salt marsh bog and out at low tide you can see the stumps of ancient forest. To Scotland and the dunes up in Aberdeenshire. Yorkshire and the fascinating Spurn Point. We visited in 2021, she a year or two later, and between those times things have changed and the coastguard no longer live out there. She goes to Blackpool to find the pennystone, Devon for the ruins of Hallsand, Norfolk to reflect over Doggerland, the Isles of scilly, The isle of Wight, and to Suffolk where a major medieval coastal port is completely gone. I'd never really thought about what a great extent of history, land and human settlement has already gone.
The coastline and the sea are such important themes for the UK and Ireland as we are island nations with very jagged coastlines. We have a lot of land to sea space. And as the coastline is liminal, always changing with the tides, and on that basis alone you'd think hard to map. But now think of the land that falls into the sea, or is simply utterly submerged, or being returned to salty marsh. Most of this is through natural occurrences, long-term climate changes of the planet, after effects of mega tsunamis (goodbye Doggerland), soft sandy land being battered by the sea. But in places, like the lost village of Hallsands in Devon, it's been drastically accelerated by human action with large scale gravel dredging in the local area. And climate change, rising sea levels etc etc are accelerating it all even more. As I sit and write this L.A. in the states is burning with some big scary wildfires. Not the first place in the world to be hit so hard, I think back over the last few years with north Africa, Australia, Canada and southern Europe.... the land we have mapped and think we know is being torn apart....
Ok, back to this book. It's a mix of history, folklore, travelogue, memoir, geography and nature. She takes 10 chapters and visits ten sites and tells their stories... yes, there are countless other worthy places she doesn't get to which would also have important stories to tell. But these are all interesting chapters. Ireland and mutton island, Wales and this village where the land seems to be inevitably going back to a kind of salt marsh bog and out at low tide you can see the stumps of ancient forest. To Scotland and the dunes up in Aberdeenshire. Yorkshire and the fascinating Spurn Point. We visited in 2021, she a year or two later, and between those times things have changed and the coastguard no longer live out there. She goes to Blackpool to find the pennystone, Devon for the ruins of Hallsand, Norfolk to reflect over Doggerland, the Isles of scilly, The isle of Wight, and to Suffolk where a major medieval coastal port is completely gone. I'd never really thought about what a great extent of history, land and human settlement has already gone.
September 21, 2024
The author takes her readers on a fascinating, if alternative history of the fractured, flooded, and eroded coasts of Britain and Ireland.
Whether it's a medieval kingdom or a notorious pirate town, Lisa Wollett takes us on an illuminating journey through a series of coastal walks. She brings to life the places where mythology and reality meet. From Bronze Age settlements on the Isles of Scilly to a submerged prehistoric forest in Wales, to a lost Victorian amusement park on the Isle of Wight to the lost land where one could walk all the way to the Netherlands from Cromer, Norfolk.
Lisa is able to draw together archaeology, meetings with locals and tales from folklore to reveal how the sea has forged, shaped, and, in many cases, overwhelmed these landscapes and communities.
Whether it's a medieval kingdom or a notorious pirate town, Lisa Wollett takes us on an illuminating journey through a series of coastal walks. She brings to life the places where mythology and reality meet. From Bronze Age settlements on the Isles of Scilly to a submerged prehistoric forest in Wales, to a lost Victorian amusement park on the Isle of Wight to the lost land where one could walk all the way to the Netherlands from Cromer, Norfolk.
Lisa is able to draw together archaeology, meetings with locals and tales from folklore to reveal how the sea has forged, shaped, and, in many cases, overwhelmed these landscapes and communities.
July 21, 2024
Beautifully written, a wondrous journey exploring the land lost to the sea around the British Isles. Who knew about the land of Doggerland that connected England to Europe, just one of the lost areas. She takes us on a journey of who when and what of these lost lands. Exploring the myths and folktales as well as the facts we do know. Right up to modern times where developers contributed to the village of Hallands lost to the sea. A warning to the future of the potential climate change will have on ever more lost lands and lives.
September 1, 2025
A very interesting and learned read for those interested in the coast of the British Isles and Ireland, coastal erosion and the surprising quantity of lost villages and the once important port of Dunwich. I learnt a lot about preserved ancient, inundated forests, the myths and archeological history of vast flooding, Doggerland and prehistoric humans. I was educated and entertained. The book is made more interesting by the accounts of the author’s journeys to places that are difficult to reach. The writing style however is very accessible.
August 22, 2024
This book tells of lost places along the coastline of the UK. I have been to a few of these places the author visits and agree with her how they can be thought provoking and beautiful in their destruction. Gazing out at Dunwich inspires the imagination to picture in the minds eye what a whole town that lies just out in the North sea might look like if only the tide would roll back to show us. The ground beneath our feet is often far from as solid as we’d like to believe it is.
September 16, 2024
Quite an interesting book with lots of background. I have actually been to one of these places, as I don't live very far from it, Forvie Sands.
Borrowed from the library. Took along to Portugal. :)
Borrowed from the library. Took along to Portugal. :)
June 30, 2024
Nice account of the human aspect of Britain's constantly changing coastline.
August 4, 2025
I have always been fascinated by villages and towns, from centuries ago, fully engulfed by rising sea levels, via documentaries, news items and published articles. Especially the images of buildings tumbling to the sea from crumbling cliffs. I was aware of the problems, mostly around the Wash, so this made me much more aware travelling around the coasts of Britain and Ireland. Both fascinating and sad.
January 7, 2026
Learnt a lot from this book, the only reason it wasn’t five stars is that the back of the book talks of folklores and these are barely mentioned and if so, not given enough time, more just an aside to the more geographical content.
But what I’ve learned from this book will stay with me, a very interesting read and a lot different from my usual reading!
But what I’ve learned from this book will stay with me, a very interesting read and a lot different from my usual reading!
June 2, 2025
A very interesting book .
September 14, 2025
Loved this book, found it quite fascinating to read of forests and lost villages over the centuries.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews