Sarah Adams One of the knots in Brian Field's collection is a Celtic Cross woven out of garishly coloured telephone wires.
Paganism meets hi-tech.
This seems an apt hybrid for the peculiar task of writing online about an ancient art form. Clearly, I have been peeping too deep into his Pandora's box of 'fancy-knots'. Down at the 'hythe' in Maldon, Essex, where the 'Maldon Knot Man' plies his trade are the barges of the Black Water Estuary, and beyond them the rotting hulls of their ancestors. He sees it as a privilege to be affiliated with people who consider knot-tying a creative practice rather than the fanatical doodlings of overgrown scouts. The Guild was established in 1982 following a silly season front- page article in The Times about the discovery of a 'new knot', the Hunter's Bend.