A year long study of a small pond in Coal Barton Wood, Coleford, Somerset

w3w: novelists//elbow//searching -  taken from the tree growing in the middle of the pond. 

Coal Barton Wood, Coleford. Drop downhill into a valley and there’s a small wood with a tiny stream running through it. Hidden amongst the trees lies an inconspicuous pond, surrounded by brambles and saplings. A trickle of water feeding it can just be seen under the foliage. I’ve chosen this place because it’s somewhere little visited; unnoticed. It has its own boundaries of raised banks enclosing it; walking around it takes less than 5 minutes, despite struggling to extricating myself from brambles and stinging nettles, ducking under tree branches, and wading through deep sucking mud. Once used by a mine, historical maps (1840s tithe map and 1880s OS 6 inch 1st edition), show buildings of which nothing now remains. It seems that the pond was once larger; presumably it's become silted up since the trees were planted or perhaps they just arrived there as seeds blown by the wind, and grew. I intend to visit the pond throughout the year, note changes, pond dip, measure the changing water height, identify plants growing around and in the water. Sitting inconspicuously, hidden from a nearby footpath by the surrounding trees, I will watch, draw, paint, photograph, listen, record sounds, and play.

More will be added to this page as I develop work during the year.

Water colour sketch from the banks of the pond, Dec 2025

Deep Encounters is a project involving 13 artists working in different areas/locations. Working collaboratively, but from different parts of the world, there will be periodic conversations about how we are each representing our piece of land, and ideas for shared activities. Identifying their area of study via Google mapping / OS map / w3ws, each artist will walk the perimeter of their area, tracing the outline, recording what it contains using photos, words, drawings, maps, sound etc. Walking our chosen places, getting to know them, activities and engagements will develop gradually from a growing familiarity. And we will be playful in our responses!

Artists participating: Zoe Ashbrook , Ruth Broadbent, Alison Berrett, Sara Dudman, Ffin(vc Price), Tamsin Grainger, Richard Keating, Melinda Hunt, Janette Kerr, Rachel McDonnell, Amanda Steer, Sally Stenton, Amanda Steer, Molly Wagner.

This is an exercise in deep mapping; an intensive look at a particular place that might include geography, history, and ecology. Some call the approach ‘vertical travel writing’, while archaeologist Michael Shanks compares it to the eclectic approaches of 18th-early 19th century antiquarian topographers, or the psycho-geographic excursions of the early Situationists.

‘…..Places are not stable; they mean different things to different people – even different things at different times. The deep map recognises the slippery identity of place, and seeks to visualise the multiple identities that go towards constructing the human experience of place'.

https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/lakesdeepmap/the-project/gis-deep-mapping/

We increasingly need to work in “the curious space between wonder and thought” a space where….“there is no single Disciplinary (in an academic sense) voice” (geographers Stephan Harrison, Steve Pile, Nigel Thrift), …. the: “space–betweenrepresentation and reality, language and life, category and experience” (feminist philosopher Geraldine Finn).. (see https://www.iainbiggs.co.uk/2014/10/deep-mapping-a-partial-view/)

FIELD NOTES FROM THE POND

Wednesday, January 28th 2026

The rain has finally stopped; I escape from the studio and make my way via the familiar footpaths into the small wood to find my pond. It lies hidden amongst the trees; people passing on the other side probably don’t know of its existence. The ground is carpeted with decaying leaves, broken twigs, the occasional tiny red berry.  

Chaotically intertwined branches create a mass of pattern and colour – shades of brown, green, orange, yellow reflecting on the surface of the pond. Rain droplets hang poised on thin twigs; pale yellow catkins suspended in the air, a few dry red leaves clinging like washing on a line, bright green moss cover tree bark, straggling patches of yellowing grass grow up through the water and around the pond’s edge.

Unsurprisingly it’s pretty boggy; as I wade into the water to measure the depth from the centre of the pond using a found stick – it’s 23cm today.

My wellies sink deep into brown oozing mud; it’s an effort to pull them out and remain upright, so I’m rather glad I have the stick. Walking slowly in a circle around the pond, I stir up pale sediment, obscuring patches of light blue sky and cloud, and dark trees reflected on the surface, patterns ripple, tiny bubble rise.

Above and below are merging into one

Retreating to dry land, I sit on the bank and listen

Someone passes outside the wood – dog walkers. They can’t see me. Voices fading.

Bird song  –

Common Woodpigeon

Eurasian Blue-Tit

Eurasian Robin

Eurasian Jay 

Alarm call of an Eurasian Blackbird

Apart from the birds it’s quiet.

The air smells earthy. The mud around the pond gleams rich brown in the low afternoon light.

I make a couple of paintings gathering pond water to mix colours. The first one I ruin – far too much detail. I wash it off, find a small stick and use it to draw with paint. Better! I make another – just washes of colour (I draw on this when I return to the studio and the colours have dried. As an oil painter I find it difficult to wait for layers to dry)

I float a strip of watercolour paper in the pond, pushing and pulling it through the mud, then I  bury it in the earth and leaves on the bank, and wonder if it will still be there when I return?

Things I plan to do:

Photograph using a macro lens and magnifying lenses

Record sounds above and under water

Film underwater

Identify plants

Pond dipping

Water samples

More drawing

More painting

Listen

Learn to be patient

Play

Things I must try not to do:

Stop trying too hard - it’s okay to just be there

Sit and do nothing (this will be tough!)

Sunday, March 1st, 2026

A visit to my pond after (still) more rain. I take a friend and her dog to meet the pond - they’ve been walking here for years yet had no idea that the pond existed until now. I realise how hidden it is; the footpath is just the other side of the pond. There is a sort of entrance to the woods framed by the trees, yet you can’t actually see the pond and the embankments unless you go looking. Most people (and they are probably just out walking their dog), turn left and follow the well trodden track, which is fine by me.

It’s still pretty wintery looking. The light through the trees is soft, a pale sun is trying to emerge through the still grey sky. The remaining leaves hanging on the trees drip with rain. The ground is slippery with black decaying leaves and twigs blown off the trees in the recent winds.

I wade into the pond, balancing precariously as mud sucks and sticks to my boots. Pressing my stick into the mud, the level is about 35cm, deeper than last time. I’m surprised that it hasn’t risen more given the days - month - of rain that has fallen.

I’m puzzled by strange clusters of brown pod shapes hanging in the water. Closer investigation and realisation - since my last visit, frogs have visited and been busy - these are large clumps of frogspawn, floating in the pond, some with a fine coating of brown mud. Spring is clearly here. At the moment they’re just black dots floating in jelly. It’s going to take about 3 weeks for the tadpoles to emerge; I’ll have to make regular trips to check on progress, and just hope that the birds don’t get them all.

I poke about for ages looking for the strip of paper I buried on my last visit. I thought I knew where I’d placed it….and am about to give up when I see a corner poking up amongst the dead leaves and muddy water on the bank. Carefully uncovering it, I photograph it in situ before carrying the strip out to film; the wet glistening colours and textures on it are fabulous.

Jane sends me her recording of the birds singing. An impressive number of species. We attempt, unsuccessfully, to spot them in the trees.

Another recording later scores even more to add to the list - a passing buzzard, a carrion crow, a Blackcap, a Coal Tit, and a Chaffinch.

Wednesday, March 5th, 2026

I have been given a challenge: ‘A silent encounter (for an hour) – what do you hear, sense, notice, are drawn to…?’ I’m not doing too well at sitting still and just listening, but I try. I’ve brought a pencil and paper, but the pencil turns out to be a blunt white pencil crayon and completely useless, so I resort to trying to scribble sounds down using mud and a twig.

I’ll translate my poor writing:

wind rustling in the trees - dog barking - birds calling - knocking sounds from the quarry that’s about a couple of miles a way - distant voices - my breath - scratching of my stick as I write.

The brown mud holds many shades - from pale to dark, and, in places, bright orange; I glimpse flecks of bright red from fallen berries missed by the birds. Pale yellow grass straggles around the edge of the pond. A bright green coating of moss covers the tree trunks rising from the middle of the pond; holly leaves bring a colour to the otherwise, bare trees. Here and there poking out of the water, a few bright green leaves have begun the appear.

It’s the textures in the mud and water that attract me. I stare into the water; there’s a whole world going on in there. Occasionally small bubbles rise to the surface; I can just about see myself reflected in them. There’s a meniscus around each one - ripples radiating out around a tiny fragment of air trapped inside a bubble. Anything that sticks out of the water has a set of tiny ripples like contours around them.

Fine particles of earth hang suspended in the water, moving slowly as sunlight catches them. I stir the water, watching tiny atoms swirling and settling.

I’ve brought eight strips of paper and place these around the pond; some I hang in trees, letting a couple touch the water, some I bury, and one I curl up and tuck into a hole in the base of the tree. Whether they will still be there when I return is anyone’s guess.

To be continued……..