In Fieldwalking – Groundlines, Ruth Broadbent created 72 drawings inspired by walking the landscape where a collection of flints were discovered.

Ruth’s work is one of the shortlisted pieces for the 2024 Marŝarto Awards. Below, she talks about her work.

72 Groundlines drawings were inspired by walking the landscape where a collection of flints have been found. They were made over a few months, each one created in a different place on Abbey Home Farm in Gloucestershire, UK, ‘mapping’ the fields through walking, pausing to draw, slowly getting to know the land, its stories, its visible and hidden layers. I spent time amongst the labelled tins of flint in the barn, walked the tracks and fields of the farm, and camped there at night. I was able to lose myself for hours wandering from field to field, musing over the various field names from Dancy’s Fancy and Happy Lands, to Barn Sisters and Hitchens Knowle. There are old ways that pass through and alongside the farm, with long standing connections to people and places further afield. This work was part of Field Walking, an exhibition connecting art and archaeology at the Corinium Museum in Cirencester, with flints found by the farmer at Abbey Home Farm alongside creative responses by four artists.

The making of fieldwalking – groundlines

The idea of making Groundlines drawings (7x7cm, pencil on paper) for the exhibition, Field Walking, came about through multiple visits to the farm. I felt the need to understand not only the layout of the farm itself, but also the processes of Will Chester-Master’s flint collecting and the way in which he orders, labels and presents them in the barn.

I use a simple toolkit of 7 x 7cm squares of paper and a range of pencils, contained in a small portable box that fits in my bag. Rather than creating an exact tracing of the ground, I am making a drawing that records the marks of my pencil as I engage with and try to understand what is beneath the paper. At times my pencil slips over the edge of an unseen stone leaving a mark, a kind of visual conversation between myself, the materials of graphite pencil and the ground. I use a range of B pencils, although often one becomes my preferred choice, this time it was an HB Staedtler which broke in half in my bag from being used so much.

I find that the tactile and sensory aspect to making Groundlines through creative walking, pausing to closely observe the ground and listening to sounds, is quiet and contemplative. This gives me the opportunity to develop a relationship with a landscape and discover some of its visible and hidden layers.

The map of the farm with its handwritten field names became integral to this project. For each drawing, I took inspiration from Will’s system of mapping and labelling, using the field names instead of exact geolocation (although I recorded the precise location, I did not include this on the drawings).

As the project progressed, I allowed for some fields having no drawings and others more, reflecting the full tins of flints for some fields and none for others. I also wanted to find a way to include the numbering system of hectares used on the map. I decided to include altitude for my system of numbering as a way to map the land where each drawing was made. As Will has handwritten names on the tins of flints, I made notes of what caught my eye on the back of each square: insects, a cairn, birdsong, swallows flying around the flints barn, shadows and lines of grass moving over the drawings, field and woodland flowers, and grasses.

With each month’s visit, the field names and my now worn paper map guided me each day. Some areas I passed through several times. Coneygars became a regular route, as did the old railway track: an access route to many areas of the farm, now a pedestrianised greenway.

My main ‘finds’ field became Downs Bank where I camped. Here I watched the full moon and the solstice sunset and sunrise. On another occasion, a large wave of mist swept across the farm, up towards the tent, then retreated back downhill. With the lower fields still damp the next morning, I looked for sunny dry areas to make drawings. A thunderstorm in Dancy’s Fancy soaked one square, embedding the ground in the drawing.

I enjoyed the freedom to wander, occasionally meeting farm workers and hearing their stories of this landscape, their favourite areas and suggestions for routes into harder-to-find fields. I particularly liked the signage at the farm on being custodians of the land for future generations: ’The land is not ours but belongs to the future and it is our responsibility to leave it in good heart.’

As I walked further afield I experienced the sheer scale of the farm, growing increasingly familiar with the network of fields and their names. Walking down the hill from Pond Ground, searching for a way into Puzzlets (which remained an unsolved puzzle), I saw pylons I had visited previously stretching into the far distance. When I first camped here some years ago, I had no idea that the farm reached this far across the landscape.

During my July visit I explored the further reaches of the farm to the West. In walking these fields I noticed how some have a small corner on the other side of a busy dual carriageway that has sliced through the farm. As a place where so many well-used routes once spread from the Roman city of Corinium, these old ways (the Fosse, Akeman Street, Welsh Way and Whiteway) are now busy with traffic dominating other users of the land, public transport non-existent and a footpath across a dual carriageway a risky challenge.

As I neared the end of my August visit, my slow walking in the fields gave me the chance to pause, revisit some old favourites, and think about how I might present the work for the exhibition. Placing some of my ground drawings on the rusty ‘finds’ tray in the flint room during my June visit had led me to think about presenting them as ‘finds’ in a way that encouraged multiple ways of displaying, sifting, sorting, rearranging. The nature of all my Groundlines series, like a pack of cards, offers multiple ways of presenting them in different contexts. The ones made at Abbey Home Farm could be grouped by the month in which they were made, by altitude, by field, alphabetically, by visual layout, tone of pencil marks, as a grid or in neat piles or scattered amongst the flints. I have framed them here in the order in which they were walked.

The two Groundlines drawings made in the flint barn (one on the floor of the flint room and one on the shelf in front of Pool Piece tin of flints) are the only two elevated from ground level, removed from that month’s walk into a frame of their own. Surrounded by flints, I felt connected to the ground up here in the eaves, with the swallows flying back and forth to their nests.

I now have a better understanding of the farm and am able to navigate it using the field names and recollections of my visits to each field. These names drew me into the stories of this area. I assumed that Camp Ground was linked to the abundant Roman history of the area but was in fact the location of a wartime camp. Manitoba has an unknown history, maybe a wartime Canadian land girl or a farm worker. Sisters is probably linked to some sisters, and Barn due to a barn (having been) there. Not labelled on the map, Will told me his childhood recollections of the woodland named Rats Castle.

As well as its history, through regular visits and staying on the farm, walking both its past and present, I also discovered its archaeology, ecology and geology (flint is not a natural geological feature here). I noticed the field margins, discovered the tithe map, its connections to other places through its tracks and roads, and thought about enclosures and environmental issues in caring for the land today.

It was lovely to feel welcomed into this landscape and be able to take time to explore and understand and develop a relationship with it, spending time amongst the labelled tins of flint in the barn, and lose myself for hours wandering from field to field. I made repeated visits to the mound of dag stone in Oxlays, enjoying this elemental trace of earth and water with its connection to the ocean floor, and its holes made by sea creatures when this area was long ago beneath sea level. This farm is full of stories, elemental and human. Reading my notes on the back of each square reminds me of my own story in relation to this area. A thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding project.

Background to Groundlines

Groundlines drawings are about connecting to the past, present and future of the tracks and lines, to consider place, people, history and environment. This mapping of the surface of the ground and a line of tracks is both subjective and objective, fluid and changing. As time passes the surface of the ground shifts, reflecting both human and climatic interactions and interventions.

Previous Groundlines include A Line Across England following a line of ancient tracks from Norfolk to Weymouth, An Island Line (a coastal loop of the Isle of Wight), Five Rivers Line (Germany).

The winner and honourable mention of the Marŝarto Awards 2024 will be announced in early 2025.