
Seaweed creations
Ella Foote heads to Dorset seeking seaweed and sea swimming and to learn how to create a lasting memory from the water
Lettuce, grape-pip, bean, pepper dulse and Mrs Griffith’s little flower – I am not making a salad, I am exploring seaweed. Did you know there are over 650 species of seaweed found around the UK? While you may spend most of your time in the water avoiding the weeds, if you take a moment beside the water, you can appreciate the beauty of our underwater plants.
Regular readers will know that in my early days as an open water swimmer I absolutely hated swimming over, around or through weeds. I would close my eyes when I put my face into the sea so nothing could look back at me.
Like many things, the more I encounter plants in freshwater and saltwater, the more I learn to deal with them as a swimmer and the less they bother me. In fact, over time I have started to enjoy and appreciate the underwater world a lot more, especially when swimming in places like western Scotland where the sea is gin-clear and the seaweed long and beautiful.
As outdoor swimmers we need to find a way to be with our watery wildlife, and as a coach I often remind clients that water weeds are just water salad and to embrace the brush of them on our limbs. Weeds can be alarming – the way they dance in the water and wrap around us as we move – but if we can float over with curiosity, we can start to understand how best to deal with them as well as learn to love them.

For friends and colleagues Melanie Molesworth and Julia Bird, seaweed has become a passion and creative outlet. For many years they were stylists living in London, but when they both moved to the coast, Julia to Cornwall and Melanie to Dorset, their love of the outdoors blended with their love of style and creativity.
They began collecting and pressing seaweed after being captivated by a similar creative collection they sourced for a photoshoot in London. Melanie started to make pressed seaweed printed cards with specimens she collected locally near her home in Lyme Regis and soon Julia and Melanie were creating more pressings, framing and exhibiting them.
Today, they run a successful seaweed design company which offers limitededition art prints of their pressings, as well as greetings cards, postcards, tea towels, cushions, enamelware and framed natural seaweed pressings. Last year their book, Seaweed: foraging, collecting, pressing, was published and it is such a simple and enjoyable hobby, that they now share their knowledge in seaweed pressing workshops.
I arrived in Lyme Regis at the end of a sunny spell of weather and was greeted with a flat-calm sea adjacent to my home for the evening, the Rock Point pub. Rock Point is a popular pub as it is so close to Lyme beach and so central in the town. It offers beautiful pub grub as well as nine boutique rooms to spend the night. I was treated to a stunning sea view room with the most comfortable Vi-Spring bed and huge bathtub to sink into after sea swimming.

The weather was due to change so not long after I arrived I was at the water’s edge for a swim. Swimming at Lyme is popular, the bay is largely sheltered and bright yellow buoys mark out an excellent route for a decent swim. I was in good company as many swimmers were looping and lapping around the buoys, tow floats bobbing behind them. It is a shingle beach but sandy underwater. Once the water gets deep, there are incredible kelp forests below, which reminded me of the task ahead.
The next day, I woke to rain and I watched keen swimmers already in the water from the comfort of my room with hot coffee, cosy from a super night’s sleep. After a brilliant breakfast, which is included in the room rate, I mooched around Lyme Regis’ independent shops before seeking out Molesworth & Bird’s studio.
By the time my workshop was due to start the rain was biblical. We met near the studio in a classroom where seaweed was already floating in white trays of water. The dark plums, pinks and greens were so pretty, it was exciting to see how we could make something like Melanie and Julia’s creations. Melanie was our workshop lead in Lyme and we started with a look at the samples she had already gathered.

Armed with buckets (provided), wet weather gear, water shoes and walking poles we headed out into the rain to seek our seaweed. “We don’t pull, pick or take seaweed that is still living, we take what has already been lifted by the sea,” says Melanie. “You don’t want anything too big, and you will need to take care on the slippery rocks!”
Of course, seaweed seeking is best done at low-tide and we had a huge expanse to explore a short walk away from the classroom. Despite the heavy rain, our class embraced the task and were soon ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ over fronds of seaweed. It is amazing how appealing a piece of seaweed can look when it is in someone else’s bucket.
As a passionate beachcomber, other things found their way into my bucket, angel wing clam shells in particular!

We returned to hot tea and cake, which was welcome on such a wet day. While we peeled off our wet gear and sipped hot tea, Melanie took us through the process, which was incredibly simple. She made it look very easy, carefully moving the seaweed on watercolour art paper with a brush.
After each piece is washed you use the trays to see your finds and select which you might like to press. Some seaweeds press better than others. “Bright greens never stay green,” says Melanie. “They tend to fade and go brown in the process. Many of us have picked up Irish Moss, which looks like a tree when pressed. While many seaweeds look attractive floating in water, once on a page it can look different. Once seaweed is selected and presented on the paper, it goes into a layered system of thick cardboard, newspaper sheets and greaseproof paper. Then, it was our turn.

I was part of a class of six and we shared our stories while rearranging our specimens. Some were hoping to take the creative practice into their own work, others were there just for fun or had been gifted the workshop as a birthday present.
It was interesting to see which seaweeds we were each attracted too and what made the cut to their pressing boards. The session ran over three hours, which included time to forage for seaweed, a guided lesson, tea, cake and all the materials we needed. You also get to take home your pressings and get given a folder with instructions so you can continue to create and collect seaweed wherever you travel.
It was fiddly and frustrating at times, but overall, it was a joyful and almost meditative process. Once into a rhythm it was additive and you could just keep going and going. It was so simple I am already wondering when I can do it again, at home. Not living near the sea, I wonder if river weeds have similar appeal?
At the end of the class, we packed up our layers between wooden boards and were instructed to swap out the paper 24 hours later and then every couple of days until the seaweed is pressed and dry. We get a chance to visit the Molesworth & Bird shop before heading home with our seascented loot.
We stayed at Rock Point: rockpointinn.co.uk
To book the seaweed workshop visit molesworthandbird.com
With thanks to St Austell Brewery and Melanie Molesworth

