Laura Cannell - The Lost Villages (2026)

Laura Cannell conjures the sounds of all that remains of The Lost Villages: metal, leather, timber and echoes of dancing around stones to keep the witches out.

The Lost Villages by Laura Cannell was created as a site-specific Sound Walk for the Bayfield Hall Sculpture Trail Autumn 2026. The music is inspired by East Anglian places which have disappeared throughout the centuries but once held people and sound.

Sometimes all that remains is the metal, leather and timber of past communities, the echoes of ghost buildings and the stories of circle dancing around the stones to keep the witches out. Crumbling towers remain and memories are embedded in the flints or washed beneath the waves.

Inspiration for the opening track ‘Thrice Around the Witches Stone’, comes from a recent second hand bookshop find, Laura discovered a re-printed booklet (originally 1922) by the local WI about the village of Westleton next to Dunwich in Suffolk. Inside there were stories from villagers of lost traditions including running three times around the witches stone to keep witches at bay, the stone still sits outside the church today, local ladies also had a business making rat skin slippers - until their rat skin suppliers let them down and they couldn’t fulfil their order of 25 pairs to customers in London.

Witches appear again in the 2nd track ‘The Witches Church’, in East Somerton in Norfolk, there is a ruined church which sits in the woods. In the centre of the church is a tree said to be the leg of a witch. At the height of the English witch trials in East Anglia, it is said that a woman accused of being a witch was buried alive there, and the oak tree grew literally from her wooden leg which she enchanted. It is said that if a visitor walks three times around the church it will release her spirit and she will be free…. But, there are ghost monks who stand guard to stop this from happening.

Actual lost villages which inspired this music include: Bayfield (North Norfolk), Westleton (not lost) and Dunwich (lost to the sea) (East Suffolk) and East Somerton (East Norfolk). The reasons for many East Anglian villages being 'lost' over the centuries, include: abandonment, coastal erosion, flooding, agricultural movement, relocation, land enclosures, plagues, migration to the city, loss of buildings by fire, sale of land, storms, evacuation for military use, and finally witchcraft (East Somerton).

Landlore and folklore combine to give us clues about what was here, and what still echoes in the air around. All that remains of The Lost Village of Bayfield is this tiny church of St Margaret (pictured). The small church on a hill has been disused since the 17th century and sits in the grounds of the latest version of Bayfield Hall (re-built in the 18th century on the site of an earlier manor house). The village and church are referenced by the Architectural Historian Nikolaus Pevsner and in the Domesday Book - where it is recorded that in 1086 it had 13 households.

All tracks were written, recorded & produced by Laura Cannell at Raveningham Church, Norfolk in August 2026. Laura plays Octave and Overbowed Violin, Voice and Field Recordings of walking, rain and thunder.

Laura Cannell and Brawl Records gratefully acknowledge the support of The Marchus Trust who funded the commissioning of the new compositions, and Creative Odyssey CIC for presenting The Lost Villages soundwalk as part of Bayfield Hall Sculpture Trail 2026.