Romney Marsh by the artist John Piper, is a beautiful collection of drawings and paintings of Romney Marsh in the south of England.

First published in 1950 by King Penguin Books who commissioned Piper’s stay and paintings for the book, it features paintings of the coastal landscape and a pictorial guide to the areas churches.

Romney Marsh is a low-lying area of wetland covering parts of Kent and East Sussex covering about 100 square miles of flat, open landscape. With big skies and ditches cutting across the fields, it is a relatively undisturbed place rich in wildlife and perfect for the artist’s pallet.

Rich in history, from the Bronze Age to the Roman conquest and the training camps of the RAF during World War Two, this was a clever choice of study by Piper and the publisher.

Architecture and particularly medieval churches are a significant part of the book, Piper conveys the sense of isolation the marsh brought from the rest of the country and its appeal as a place of quiet refuge and worship. This is an area where early life would have been unforgiving despite its beauty and Piper’s ability to capture its big skies and wide open spaces planted my proverbial feet back in that time.

It is a small book which runs to some fifty pages but Piper fills it with paintings that are both dramatic and beautifully calming in equal measure. I have always found wide, flat open spaces very difficult to capture with a camera let alone a paint brush but Piper captures those slightest of raises in the ground and the place where sky meets land so wonderfully.

His recording of the area’s churches is brief and to the point and that theme runs through the book, Piper writes of the smuggling that took place in the area, more than any other place in the country; wool running to France, the illegal exportation of Fullers Earth, spirits, silks and lace and so on. It’s hard to think of a better suited place to run boats to and from and the local churches were known as places to store the smuggled goods!

John Egerton Christmas Piper was born in 1902, he was a Second World War artist of note, best known for his paintings of churches and landmarks and in particular, Coventry Cathedral. He painted for John Betjeman and contributed to the Shell Guides and this was his fourth published works of a total of eight. Twice married he died aged eighty eight in 1992.

This is a lovely little book, I have seen very few from this publisher but I love the format and any book showcasing Pipers work has to be worth the money.