The Lookers Huts

A Photographic Exploration of the Lookers’ Huts of the Romney Marshes
by Nigel P Crick

Published 27th May 2010
£8.99 Hardback 40 pages

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Romney Marsh was home to thousands of sheep and to the shepherds – known as Lookers – whose lonely job it was to look after them.

Nigel P Crick’s stunning, atmospheric photographs capture the isolation of the Lookers’ existence: tending to numerous huge flocks of sheep over a vast area meant that they had to spend long periods away from home, and these small, sparse, brick-built huts provided their only shelter.

The Marsh is now dotted with these ruined huts, with less than 20 remaining from more than 300 in the area’s agricultural heyday.

Nigel Crick has searched for and photographed all the remaining Lookers huts, providing a poignant record of what were once vital shelters before these too fall to ruins.

Nigel P Crick is a lover of the outdoor life, a keen hill climber and mountaineer. He has run his own surfing and climbing shop, and has now settled on the Romney Marshes, which he roams with his camera. Nigel lives in Littlestone, Kent.