Beach of Dreams

The Beach of Dreams Silks

Alice Violett, Pennant 754

Beach of Dreams 2025 (Historic England Project)

Created by Essex Book Festival

Orford Ness

About

I found a chunk of concrete to perch on – this one unceremoniously dumped amid a conglomeration of other rocky waste, rather than deliberately arranged – and pondered the view. I could see a building that bore a resemblance to the Japanese pagodas we’d learned about, except it only had one storey and, like almost everything else here, was constructed from concrete. And while the standing stones had been surprisingly small, even from a distance I could tell this structure was much larger than I’d anticipated. The proportions of this place were making me feel like Alice in Wonderland, and I briefly wondered if my suit was letting in some kind of mind-altering particle.

Beach of Dreams 2025 (Historic England Project)