If you go down in the woods today, you’re less likely to bump into a gang of bears enjoying a peaceful picnic, and much more likely to see the artist and ambler known ‘round these ways as Man in the Woods, who talks to Rosanna Spence about his famous Friday Walks, making crop circles on TV with Charlie Cooper, and why he loves creating miniatures. Photo above: Man in the Woods, photo by Elena Heatherwick
Being able to talk to people whose work I’ve admired from a distance for years for a feature in this magazine is a real perk of the job. But sometimes that distance is, it turns out, more of a simple stone’s throw from my house. Case in point is Scott, who ambles around the South West’s more rural terrain under the moniker of Man in the Woods, creating a distinctive brand of folk art that he calls ‘artefacts’ (though he’s keen to tell me “I worry that might sound a bit pretentious. People can describe my artwork however they like, and I’m fine with that”), finding inspiration for his creations on his weekly Friday Walk – a ritual now followed and enjoyed by nearly 20,000 people online.
It felt fitting to meet Scott at The Orchard café in leafy St George, a spot near both our abodes, which in itself felt a little symbolic of our conversation discussing the new ways people are using to access information about and connection to folk traditions (ahem, Instagram).
The Orchard is a sign of how city landscapes and community spaces have changed over the years; an old, converted church-like structure now home to a thoroughly modern and bustling café and bakery – the kind of psychogeographical phenomena that fuels Scott’s quiet and measured sense of wonder about neighbourhoods, and especially those in the South West corner of Britain that we’re so lucky enough to inhabit – which hums with history and stirs with strangeness.
Man of the land
Scott didn’t always find himself wandering the west, though. Originally hailing from Windsor, he had “always been interested in storytelling, place and connection to the land and history”, and in the south east this has manifested itself as fascination with psychogeography (i.e. the effects geographical locations have on people’s emotions and behaviour within them). He points to the old villages that are now “classic layers of London history, which have swollen up and grown into each other like expanding foam”; and following the city’s “lost rivers” as examples of why many people living in the city, as he did for a number of years, find themselves often exploring the land on foot.
But it was a pre-Bristol, 18-month stint in Salisbury “moving there on a whim” and surrounding county Wiltshire’s folk history of standing stones, expansive plain, Iron Age hill forts, UFO activity, crop circles, Bronze Age barrows and “good, old pubs” that really ignited his “deeper interest in the weird landscape”.
Seven years ago, Salisbury became the starting point for a simple, walking ritual – “just wandering around, looking at things quietly” – that would soon capture the imaginations of thousands of people: the Friday Walk. He chuckles, remembering his original reasons for venturing out: “I didn’t really have any friends nearby and I was working self-employed as a gardener, so all the people I encountered other than my partner were essentially elderly women who didn’t need another friend to go to the pub with.
“I wanted to anchor myself to the place and so I thought, maybe I should get to know the lie of the land; if I could know the names of all the hills or where that river comes from and where it goes, understand the feeling of the place and the stories it holds, then maybe I feel more embedded.”
Scott’s walks – which he documents each week on his Instagram account @man.in.the.woods as a personal project, despite being watched by so many people – have a unique cadence and quiet tone to them. He says his approach is “a bit more aimless and slower, looking at the small things”.
This could be stopping to focus on some unusually-shaped petals, a busy bee or a curious cow (the latter of which, having built its own folklore within Scott’s followers and artwork, is better known as “the beast”).
Though each amble is different, some things never change – they always begin at the exact spot where the previous walk finished, with the help of public transport, creating a long thread weaving a tapestry of travel around the South West that wiggles, crosses and overlaps itself; and they always end in a signature pint at the local pub. The end result has been one, technically-unbroken walk that Scott has been mapping out digitally and on paper.
His soft, slow accounts of each venture, though garnering lots of social media attention, stand out on Instagram, almost like a version of ‘anti-content’, quietly challenging the fast-paced, noisy videos we’re so used to scrolling through with a moment of rest, taking in a slice of Britain where it feels like time has stood still. Quite the tonic.
“I’m fascinated by the long story of humanity,” says Scott. “In the countryside, you feel like you’re entering the past, which is part of the magic, because you can see so much visible history in the hedgerows, and all the ancient lumps and bumps.”
Artefacts & ambles
The distinctive personality of Scott’s walks directly inform his artworks, those aforementioned artefacts (pictured on these pages): “I like the idea of each thing I make becoming a little bit of evidence that helps tell part of the story of the land that I’m getting to know on my walk,” he explains. “I like making flyers and posters that you would see actually living on a village notice board, rather than just creating the type of image you would only see in a gallery or something.”
Another notable artefact created from Scott’s Friday Walks are miniature cross stitch church kneelers. “I like stitching and its repetitive processes, which is slow, meditative and sometimes laborious work,” Scott tells me. “I also quite like unsophisticated work as well, stuff that’s not super technical. Anybody could do that; anyone could make one of them. In that way, it’s a good fit for folk art.”
He points out that in his art he has a habit of taking something that’s practical and everyday, “and making it slightly impractical by making it tiny, for example. I’ve always liked miniature things; I feel that if you can recreate the world in miniature objects, you can get your head around the ideas behind it a bit more.”
Myth Country
You may have encountered Scott before, but rather than on a rural bridleway, it was on your TV screens. He joined This Country’s Charlie Cooper as a guest on his own miniseries Myth Country, which debuted a year ago on the BBC, exploring the ‘gloriously bonkers’ world of British folklore. Scott and Charlie became friends a few years ago, bonding over pints, shared interests and mutual connections (“he once invited me camping with his family to a Medieval festival”), and one double-booked hangout saw Scott join Charlie during the filming of Myth Country’s pilot episode.
“Charlie told me to come along, so I was sitting with my cross stitch, and the director started asking who the guy sewing in the corner was? ‘Let’s get him involved’.”
Scott was involved on and off camera; he’d worked on artwork for the pilot proposal to the BBC, was involved with background research for the show’s content and had “hooked them up with a guy I’d met on the internet about two weeks before filming who happened to be a crop circle maker” for one episode.
His ventures with Charlie have continued, too – during the summer’s heavy heatwave, the pair were involved in an archaeological dig alongside comedian Frank Skinner and under the guidance of a university team, excavating the grave of a wealthy woman from the Anglo-Saxon period in Kent. Who knows what mysteries they’ll unearth next?
Weird ways
Sitting tucked away in a corner of The Orchard, Scott reflected on how interest in local folklore and traditions feels like it’s grown in recent years. We chatted about the stickiness of communicating the ‘old ways’ through the modern lens of social media, and agreed that it’s more important to democratise access to and knowledge of folk traditions: “I can see there’s a paradox or something difficult in people wanting to access this kind of connection to the land through a screen in your hand. But if they’re going to have a screen in their hands anyway, then it’s really nice if the content can connect them to the earth, to past traditions and something soulful.”
And he noted that there was a certain “uplift” in people more formally exploring the folk way – namely the Weird Walk zine, Morris dancing side Boss Morris and folk artist Bed Edge – who all seemed to enter the public sphere at a similar time to Scott. He describes this synchronistical timing as poetically as ever: “It felt like the earth was fertile at that time as we the seeds fell on it. A lot of people were seeking something more long-term, slow and rooted.”
Scott exhibited his work locally last year, and has plans to potentially curate a specific group of objects for a particular space in the city. In his words, “I’m always bumbling along with 100 projects in my head”.
For now, Scott’s Friday Walks will continue, and when I asked him for recommendations so readers can explore some special spots nearby on their own amble he suggested the following…
“I love Stanton Drew Stone Circle. It’s an easy, straightforward walk: take the bus out to Pensford to see the amazing viaduct, walk out to the stones (stopping off for a pint at The Druids Arms and looking at the stones in the pub garden) then walking back to The Rising Sun in Pensford for chips in the amazing beer garden.”
Scott also recommended checking out Stoney Littleton Long Barrow, south of Bath, which is a Neolithic tomb you can crawl through, and Greyfield Wood, near High Littleton, which has wide paths leading to Stephen’s Vale Waterfall. Where will you wander to next?
maninthewoods.co.uk | @man.in.the.woods
