My very good friend, Julian Forbes, took all of the photographs for the album’s artwork.
I’d had it in my head for a while that the artwork should express the idea of hiding in the natural world, without ever fully escaping the “real” world. An early idea was to seek out the abandoned entrance to Baynards tunnel in the thick, ancient woods which surround the old branch line near Bramley & Gomshall, but we never made it that far. Researching disused tunnels, with the help of this database, was fun, though.
In the end, we honed in on the WW2 pillboxes which follow the river between Godalming and Chilworth. Apparently, there are eighteen, but we used two for our pictures: one in the open air; one very much obscured by rampant and unyielding woods. I’m very grateful to the Pillbox Study Group (I know, right?!) for their tireless research. It seemed apt to have these lumbering, imposing, ever-so-man-made concrete shelters amongst this dense, forbidding woodland. One man’s tiny, overgrown Alamo in the forest.
How to Prepare 