The Seaweed Queens of Torquay: Amelia Griffiths and Mary Wyatt

Two women, five books, two hundred and thirty four seaweeds

Photo by Peter Molitor on Unsplash

In the summer of 1830, a woman in a broad-brimmed hat and voluminous skirt picks her way over the rocks of a Devon beach. She gathers seaweed from the tidepools and places them in a creel. If other beach-goers think her eccentric, they keep it to themselves. Locals know her as the widow of a Cornish…