Fr. 30.90

View From the Hill - Four Seasons in a Walker''s Britain

English · Hardback

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Collected notes from avid walker Christopher Somerville's treks through the British countryside.

In Christopher Somerville's workroom is a case of shelves that holds four hundred and fifty notebooks. Their pages are creased and stained with mud, blood, flattened insects, beer glass rings, smears of plant juice, and gallons of sweat. Everything Somerville has written about walking the British countryside has had its origin in these little black and red books.

During the lockdowns and enforced isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, Somerville began to revisit this treasury of notes, spanning forty years of exploring on foot. The View from the Hill pulls together the best of his written collections, following the cycle of the seasons from a freezing January on the Severn Estuary to the sight of sunrise on Christmas morning from inside a prehistoric burial mound. In between are hundreds of walks to discover toads in a Cumbrian spring, trout in a Hampshire chalk stream, a lordly red stag at the autumn rut on the Isle of Mull, and three thousand geese at full gabble in the wintry Norfolk sky. Somerville's writing enables readers to enjoy these magnificent walks without stirring from the comfort of home.


List of contents

Newly opened eyes 1

New Year into Spring 5

1 The putcher-maker 7

2 Nuttall bagging 9

3 P arson Hawker’s Morwenstow 12

4 A is for Anger 15

5 Covidiots? 17

6 Walking in snow 19

7 Snowholing 22

8 Natural remedy 25

9 Dry stone wall 27

10 B is for Binoculars 29

11 S alt marsh 31

12 S hips’ graveyard 33

13 Animal tracking 36

14 Blue prince of the mountains 39

15 C is for Curmudgeon Man 42

16 Forest floor 44

17 Digby in glory 46

18 New Forest in mist 48

19 The randy natterjack 50

20 Whatever happened to Lover’s Lane? 53

21 D is for Drovers 55

22 Keep it simple, stupid 57

23 Death of the map 59

24 Gellius Philippus: who he? 62

25 Neatsfoot oil 65

26 Penwith granite 67

27 E is for Elephant 70

28 Summons soup with the Laird of Gight 72

29 Turncoats of the Peak 75

30 St Swithun’s Way 78

31 F is for Flora and Fauna 81

32 Bempton Cliffs 83

33 Salmon on the Spey 85

34 G is for Green Man 88

35 Up the down and down the beach 90

36 Slutch 93

37 H is for Heroes 96

38 Google Translate 98

39 Greenham Common resurgent 100

40 Covid Spring: two walks 104

41 I is for Islands 107

42 Freemining in the Forest of Dean 109

43 Dawn chorus 111

44 L adder of life 114

45 J is for Jollity 115

46 Dunes of delight 117

47 Apple confetti 120

Summer 123

48 The Garden of Sleep 125

49 Covid Summer: off-grid in Dragondown Wood 129

50 With Rupert Brooke through Grantchester

Meadows 131

51 Gannets of the Bass Rock 134

52 Covid Summer: the crayfish of Ironmaster’s Vale 137

53 The figurehead of our wild lands 139

54 The Ringing Stone of Tiree 142

55 K is for Kyrgyzstan 145

56 A proper Lakeland how-d’ye-do 147

57 Nightjars and moths of Arne Heath 149

58 Splatchers 152

59 Worldwide seed of a single English field 154

60 L is for Landlady 157

61 Brocton Camp 159

62 I got 99 problems and a tent ain’t one 162

63 Orford Ness: a funny old place 164

64 South Wales Valleys: iron and coal 167

65 A message to mucky mankind 170

66 Howlin’ Dog Jackson 174

67 Covid Summer: Russet Mere and Monk’s Kitchen 176

68 Secret riches 178

69 M is for Music 181

70 Fanfare for the soldier 183

71 Three Peaks of Yorkshire: a long, sharp shock 185

72 Bye, Arnold! 189

73 The badgers of Little Stoke Woods 192

74 Shingle 195

75 N is for Notebook 197

76 R ed squirrels of the Sefton Coast 199

77 Hampshire chalk stream 203

78 Soaked on Scafell Pike 206

79 L ammas meadows 208

80 O is for Ooooohhhh 212

81 Living on an island 214

82 Tidal landscape of Worm’s Head 217

83 Dream island 220

84 Welcome to GB! 223

85 H ard hats and humorous shags 226

86 Betjeman eyes 229

87 P is for Poetry 232

88 Through Sloch na Marra to Rathlin Island 233

89 The Walls of Derry 236

90 Larks over Hubberholme 239

91 S alt marsh and mudflat: Cobnor peninsula 241

92 Bat-watching in Petworth Park 244

93 A stroll on the Goodwin Sands 247

94 Q is for Quagmire 250

95 Englyn on Snowdon 252

Autumn 255

96 Jays in the ilex 257

97 Big Meadow 258

98 Gassy Webcap, Bedstraw Smut and the dreaded

Cramp Balls 261

99 The Great Ash Massacre 263

100 Covid Autumn: India in the Cotswolds 266

101 R is for Rights 268

102 Climbing irons 270

103 H eather moors 272

104 The lord of Inivae 275

105 PIT APAT278

106 S is for Stick 280

107 Bummelty-kites and yoe-brimmels 282

108 An end-of-the-earth kind of place 285

109 W ild magic of the Sperrins 288

110 S olitary mooch with a beautiful killer 290

111 Ancient oak 293

112 S taving off the sea 294

View from the Hill.indd 10 29/07/2021 17:39

113 Dunwich shore and Dingle Marshes 297

114 T is for Thermos 300

115 S tranger on the shore 302

116 Autumn on the Severn 305

117 R oasted crabs 307

118 Bolving, soiling and Jacobson’s organ: courtship

of the red stag 309

Winter 313

119 Innominate Tarn 315

120 Strid and strong beer 317

121 U is for Umbrella 320

122 Galoshes 322

123 M y bedside Essex 324

124 Moody, muddy Dengie 326

125 F lint and clay 329

126 V is for Vixen 332

127 Song of the mermaids 334

128 Starling roar 337

129 L and of the dragon 340

130 A pot of bile 343

131 W hat’s under the jacket 345

132 W is for Willy Knott 348

133 Covid Winter: Skirrid in the Sky 349

134 Fight for the footpaths 351

135 The rough embrace of winter 354

136 S now bridge 357

137 X is for Xmas 359

138 With George Borrow to Castell Dinas Bran 361

139 Angling and quanting: the Norfolk Broads

in winter 363

140 3,000 geese at full gabble 366

141 The unspeakable Stiperstones 369

142 Y is for Yer Tiz 372

143 Too much damn trouble 374

144 Covid Winter: sunrise at the long barrow 376

145 Boxing Day: go climb a hill 378

146 Z is for Zymurgy 381

147 What’s the point? 382

Notes 391

View

About the author










Christopher Somerville is the walking correspondent of the Times. He is one of Britain's most respected and prolific travel writers, with forty-two books, hundreds of newspaper articles, and many TV and radio appearances to his name. He lives in Bristol, and his website is www.christophersomerville.co.uk.


Summary

A new collection of walks from one of Britain's best-known walking journalists and currently Walking Correspondent for The Times.

Additional text


“Somerville is a walker’s writer. The countryside has never been more inviting and this is the book to make you reach for your rambling shoes. It’s a profusion of delights!”

— Nicholas Crane, author of Why Geography Matters: A Brief Guide to the World



"From the enforced hibernation of the lockdown year, Somerville turns his vision to forty years of wandering. With precision, clarity, depth and curiosity, these recollections lead us down the pathways of a lifetime."

— Nick Hunt, author of Outlandish: Walking Europe's Unlikely Landscapes



"An absolute delight."

— Great British Life



"Somerville’s meticulous prose could never be described as rambling, and his latest offering, culled from the 450 notebooks he’d kept during a lifetime of walking, might better be described as a miscellany of magical memories. Faced with the enforced hibernation of lockdown, Somerville turned to the dog-eared, battered notebooks he’d made during 40 years of wandering the British countryside, to revive and re-live the best and most memorable moments.The result, in nearly 150 pithy, engaging and erudite essays, is a literary tour de force, an enchanting voyage of discovery and wonder through some of the most beautiful and fascinating landscapes of Britain. And all this in the jovial company of one of Britain’s most popular countryside writers."

— Outdoor Focus



"An absolute delight."

— Dorset Magazine



"The View From The Hill is an anthology of tales from the outdoors written over a period of many years. Culled from groaning shelves of notebooks in his study, and compiled during lockdown when all normal life ground to a halt, it's a joyous wander right across the British Isles, reveling in the rich landscape of our isles, and marveling at the wildlife that lives in it. . . . I enjoyed every line of this book. . ."

— Hiking Historian


Product details

Authors Christopher Somerville, Somerville Christopher
Publisher Haus Publishing
 
Languages English
Product format Hardback
Released 30.09.2021
 
EAN 9781909961760
ISBN 978-1-909961-76-0
No. of pages 330
Series Armchair Traveller
Subjects Guides > Nature
Travel > Travelogues, traveller's tales

TRAVEL / Essays & Travelogues, SPORTS & RECREATION / Walking, Walking, hiking, trekking, SPORTS & RECREATION / Hiking, Travel writing

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