The Perimeter: A Photographic Journey around the Coast of Britain
By (Author) Quintin Lake
Cornerstone
Hutchinson Heinemann
15th June 2025
15th May 2025
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Landscapes / seascapes
Memoirs
551.4570941
Hardback
464
Width 256mm, Height 269mm, Spine 35mm
2280g
Five years. 11,000 kilometres. Over 1,300 photos. Rediscover Britain in this vivid and intimate full-colour account of one man's pilgrimage along its rugged shores On Friday 17 April 2015, photographer Quintin Lake set off from the steps of St Paul's Cathedral on a five-year journey that would take him around the entire coastline of mainland Britain. Armed with twenty kilos of hiking and photography gear, he walked 11,000 kilometres in 454 days with one goal in mind- to produce a body of photographic work that gets under the surface of the island nation that we call home. Carefully curated with over 1,200 photos and interspersed with stories of Quintin's adventures, this book is an immersive visual experience that showcases Britain as you've never seen it before. Discover charming seaside towns such as Staithes in Yorkshire, venture to the desert landscape of Dungeness in Kent and marvel at the beautiful desolation of Scotland's Knoydart Peninsula. Explore the contrast between industry and nature along the Welsh coast path, where plumes of steam rising from the Port Talbot steelworks are as jaw-dropping as the stunning Worm's Head on the Gower Peninsula. And follow Quintin as he narrates the monumental challenges of wild camping - from battling with midges and stress fractures, to clambering up cliffs to escape a rising tide. Filled with striking photos that capture the glorious and often surprising world between land and sea, The Perimeter is a celebration of Britain - a small island with a vast coastline.
The Perimeter is astonishing. It deserves to be an instant classic. Icons mixed with granular detail that forced me to re-imagine even the sections of the coast that I know well.
On his epic walk, Lake has captured the grandeur of the seaboard, but also the granular detail: from moonlight on the North Sea, neolithic burial cairns and washed-up shipwrecks to ruined, cliff-top castles, empty bandstands and shiny new wind farms.
A beautiful, important book: a reminder that, contrary to what we hear in the news, this island remains a precious stone set in a silver sea.
Quintin Lake is a multi-award-winning photographer specialising in landscape and architecture, with twenty-five years of experience. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Royal Society of Arts, his work has been featured in leading publications such as National Geographic Traveler, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel. In 2020, he was named The Great Outdoors' Outdoor Personality of the Year. He lives in Cheltenham with his family.