As the year slows and the winter solstice draws near, I find myself pausing - not to take stock in any grand way - but taking time to notice where I am.
This is the time of year where we hold our loved ones a little closer - and where, almost without realising it, we begin to cast our thoughts forward - towards what will become, and how we might grow.
It’s also a moment when paths begin to reveal themselves. A time when ideas that have been gathering through the year start to find form - journeys, projects and collaborations. I’d love to share what's in store for the Digest here with you.
I don’t want to move too fast - for I do believe that shadows help towards beauty’s end - after all, the brightest stars need the darkest night.
But I will be seeking out the chiaroscuro - the kind of light that fires us up inside - and sharing it as it gathers strength in the new year.
Tomorrow’s Digest comes from Edinburgh - that beautiful capital city - celebrating that special time of twilight, when the day loosens its grip.
Rootedness and Connection
The Digest has always been about helping us navigate - ways of anchoring ourselves amidst the complexity and flux of a new world order. It’s also about the aggregate human attempt - building little webs of connections - not just to provide sanctuary, but also as a counterbalance to the way things are.
Opening myself to alternative ways of experiencing the world helped me navigate anxiety and depression, and widened the horizons of what felt possible.
Often, it was the seeking out of places itself that brought comfort - but looking back, I can see there was something deeper running beneath all that searching.
Without realising it, I had begun to serve the very thing that had saved me - to stand before places not in possession, but in witness - and to share what they offered as a kind of work.
That sense of witness, and journey into self through place, continues to shape everything that lies ahead.
Following the Light Through Place
In the year to come, through the best of my photography, words and art, I’ll be sharing more places like Lavenham -
Lastingham,
Temple Church,
and Rudston
- and exploring the meaning of the landscapes that feed into them. Not just what these places are, but how they continue to inspire us - if we take the time to notice.
Deeply Vale — Honouring the Human
This marks the beginning of a project that has been a seed in my heart for a long time.
There is a wild, isolated valley in a northern spur of the Pennines that, for a short blaze of time, held a small community of mill workers. They served water - and later steam - powered mills that now lie in ruin, entangled in ivy and moss.
At Deeply Vale they built cottages - had a pub in a parlour - and drew their water from nearby springs. It’s all gone now - just lumps and bumps in the ground.
And yet something remarkable has happened.
The Cheesden Brook - a watery remnant of a glacial thrust that cut the valley here - has meandered off course. Over time it has softened the man-made leats and cut into a midden. It’s a layer-cake of artefacts and objects - shoes, ceramics, glass, pattern ware, bottles, medicinal items - late Georgian to mid C20th, all mixed as one.
What these fragments reveal is a remarkably diverse community of extraordinary, ordinary lives - with traces of Scots and Irish, and economic migrants from Suffolk - navigating the dangerous and choppy hills of the Pennines in desperation to find better lives on the banks of the Industrial Revolution.
Especially in times like these, this work feels important not simply because it speaks of one small, forgotten community in the northern hills, but because it touches something universal - our shared need to recognise human lives as meaningful, to resist their erosion into statistics or footnotes, and to affirm that dignity, hope, and belonging matter everywhere.
Something deep within drives me to find ways of honouring ordinary people who have been caught up in the vortex of circumstance and forgotten – of standing against the tide that dilutes what it is to be human – and of affirming that every single individual counts.
My way is through making an art book - embraced by an old Victorian cover - gilded with words. On the papers within, I’ll sketch as many of the artefacts as possible. And in another layering up of joy within the project, I'll be asking Adam Jurkojc - time-travelling-book-binder - who I photographed through Member Powered Photography - to make the art book for the project.
Whilst drawing up the spirit of the observed through eye and mind, arm and hand, pen and ink and watercolour, I’ll share with you what they say to me.
Through the philosophy of Kintsugi, we can fill the cracks with art - and allow those lives to shine again in memory. It’s a kind of work that I hope will echo outwards from the microcosm of a hidden valley into the wider world.
I wouldn’t be able to contemplate this work without the support of Memberships - they give me the time and space. Members will share the backstory - and have access to the outcomes, including prints and visual material as the work unfolds.
York Minster — The Meaning of Place
There is also another astonishing project ahead - commissioned by York Minster and lasting the full year.
This will take us into the very meaning of place, and includes a special art project and collaboration with architectural historian Rob Andrews. I’ll be weaving my way around York - and finally into the Minster itself - sharing the journey as it develops.
Members will be able to follow that backstory closely - experiencing the process from the edges of the city to its sacred heart.
In Pursuit of Spring
And then there is In Pursuit of Spring.
Next year I’ll be travelling the full length of Britain - from John O’Groats to Land’s End - following the season’s unfolding from north to south.
Inspired by Edward Thomas’s celebrated book of the same name, I’ll visit some of our most ancient and sacred landscapes along the way - as well as many of my most loved buildings. It will be a journey into light and renewal - a deliberate counterweight to darker days. Members will have special access to a series of posts.
Along Offa’s Dyke
At the latter end of the year there are plans to walk along Offa’s Dyke with friend, companion and stonemason, Rory Moore.
It will be a journey into landscape and memory - and also an opportunity to see the places we visit through another perspective - somebody whose hands have shaped the very buildings we inhabit.
Member Powered Photography — New Places
I’m also pleased to share that Member Powered Photography - made possible through memberships and donations - has two new places available for professional photography in historic locations. These places have already been filled - and I'll be sharing the amazing locations with you in the new year.
Since lockdown and throughout the cost of living crisis, your membership support has helped keep me afloat. It keeps Woody on the road. It makes this work possible. And through our Member Powered Photography programme, we’ve now completed twelve free professional photo shoots for historic buildings and craft practitioners.
Standing at the Threshold
As the solstice arrives, I’m conscious that this is a threshold moment - not just in the year, but in the work itself.
What lies ahead is already beginning to take shape - the travel, the projects, the stories — -but it only unfolds in this way with shared support. Membership doesn’t sit at the edges of this work - it’s what allows it to exist in real time.
If you’ve been reading for a while - if these places, and this way of seeing, have begun to matter - I hope that this is a natural moment to step a little closer.
The light is turning again - and there’s something deep down and instinctive that seems important about walking into it together.
Membership Offer - Can you help support my work?
If the Digest has ever offered you a moment of stillness, sparked a memory, or shifted the way you see the world - and you feel able - I would be delighted to welcome you as a member.
Right now, I’m offering 20% off The Parlour tier, which includes:
– Monthly access to Patina, where I share early drafts from the book I’m writing on recovery and rebuilding
– Extra photography, members-only content, and reflections
– Members Supplements
– And the knowledge that you’re helping keep this road-worn work alive
If you feel able to support – thank you.
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And if now isn’t the right moment to take on a paid membership, please don’t worry.
The Digest will always remain free to read. For those who would love access to the extra content but can’t afford it, I’ve have a few no-cost places - just reply to this email and I’ll set you up with no fuss. Many readers also use the Digest for CPD, and the members’ content provides a rich seam of material for professional development. If that would help you, just let me know.
Thank you – I’m so grateful for your support.
Andy
Kind Words:
To receive your Loci Digest is to take a long drink from a cool stream on a hot day. Your beautiful word paintings take me to places I'd forgotten. Thank you. (Email from a subscriber)
You're writing and photography are so beautiful - you have a wonderful skill. Thank yo ufor giving your insights ad helping us to really see. (Email from a subscriber)
Andy your work is becoming wonderful, remarkable. A so-called breakdown has been milled into its constituent parts, becoming profound construction: through perception, architecture, the lens and the pen. In your Repton crypt essay a deep description of our social anxiety - and our reason to be.... (Email from a subscriber)
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