Sales From The Riverbank

Joe banks meets a maker creating special pieces from items found on the water’s edge.

- Joe banks

BARNEY Dearsly has always felt a strong connection to the water. He grew up beside the Exe estuary in Lympstone and as a teenager quickly developed into a highly accomplished yachtsman.

By the time he was 17 he’d moved on from messing about on the estuary to representing Great Britain in two-man catamarans, travelling as far as New Caledonia in the South Pacific to take part in world championships.

His other passion from an early age kept him rooted to home. Foraging on the estuary shore for interestingly shaped driftwood and all the other flotsam and jetsam that gets left behind by the tides was an equally compelling, but very different, way of connecting to his locale. These days, Barney still sails competitively at the weekend, but it’s the beach finds that have become the central focus of his life through his business, Weathered By Water.

Barney explains: “There’s always that sense of wonder with found objects – how they’ve been shaped and their history.”

His fascination with beach combing can be traced back to childhood walks with his family: “My parents used to have a little game on beaches with different coloured bits of sea glass. Due to weathering, and longshore drift and erosion, a bit of glass from an old beer bottle will end up completely smooth. Emeralds would be worth a penny, a rupee would be worth 3p and sapphires would be worth 5p. And they had to be dead smooth. If they had a sharp edge Dad would discard them. You’d end up with enough money to buy an ice-cream, maybe.”