When a schoolboy found the Lyme Bay astrolabe in 1967, a story which should have made headlines instead vanished from local memory. More than fifty years had passed before writer and activist Horatio Morpurgo began to ask why. The more he learnt about this rare navigational instrument and its recovery from the sea near his home, the more intrigued he became.
The trail leads over unstable cliffs to dissenting chapels to a neglected story about Atlantic slavery and empire. Marine conservation, Extinction Rebellion and the politics of immigration: each has its say. He encounters sea fans, Mary Annings ink, John Fowles writing studio and beneath these, faultlines as deep in the geology as they are in the culture.
A Guide to the Unconformity is what happens when you ask one question of one short stretch of the coastline, then wait long enough for it to answer.
List of Figures
Announcement
Eroded Calibrations
Jarring Note
A What? Part One
The Seas Commentary
A More Thorough Rummaging
Contemporary Landscape
The Skates Eye
A Little Bit Stand-Alone
Sub-Tropical
The Orange Frame
A What? Part Two
Postscript
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Horatio Morpurgo has written on the environment for many publications. His books include Lady Chatterleys Defendant & Other Awkward Customers (2011, Just Press), The Paradoxal Compass (2017, Notting Hill Editions) and Afterwardsness (2022, Erewhon). He lives with his family in West Dorset.
