Friday Talk: The history and craft of Rushwork on the River Stour

About this event

In this illustrated talk, Anna Lewington will give an overview of the history of rush cutting and rushwork as practised historically on the River Stour in the vicinity of Marnhull. She will also describe the project ‘RushWorks’ she set up in 2006 in order to try and keep the local knowledge and practise of working with rushes alive, an activity still continued today with an annual rush harvest and workshops run from her home in Sturminster Newton. Anna is an ethnobotanist and writer who has been researching and writing about importance of plants to people for many years. Her interest developed as an undergraduate student and led to her study of Amerindian languages and culture at St Andrews university, and her thesis on the importance of the root crop manioc to the Matsigenka Indians of the Peruvian Amazon. She is the author of two editions of ‘Plants For People’, a comprehensive study of the ways in which products from plants support our daily lives, first written at the invitation of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and subsequently described as ‘a complete inspiration to the Eden Project’.

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