In her late twenties, celebrated poet Jen Hadfield moved to the Shetland archipelago to make her life anew. A scattering of islands at the northernmost point of the United Kingdom, frequently cut off from the mainland by storms, Shetland is a place of Vikings and myths, of ancient languages and old customs, of breathtaking landscapes and violent weather. It has long fascinated travellers seeking the edge of the world.
Last night we hosted an event with Jack Cornish and heard all about his new book Lost Paths.
Hundreds of thousands of miles of paths reach into, and connect, communities across England and Wales. By 2026, 10,000 miles of undiscovered footpaths around Britain stand to be lost. Jack Cornish has dedicated the last five years of his life to walking these forgotten routes, and this book, The Lost Paths, is the result. It is Jack Cornish’s hope that The Lost Paths will show just how special these forgotten rights of way are, and how embedded each path is in the history of Britain.
Footpaths, tracks, country lanes and urban streets illuminate how our ancestors interacted with and shaped their landscapes in the pursuit of commerce, salvation, escape, war, and leisure. Paths are an often-overlooked part of our everyday life and our country’s history, crucial to understanding the cultural and environmental history of us in the landscape.
After dedicating his time and energy to fighting for their survival, The Lost Paths is Jack’s personal journey and exploration of the deep history of English and Welsh footways. This narrative history takes us through ancient forests, exposed mountainsides, urban back streets and coastal vistas to reveal how this millennia-old network was created and has been transformed.
This is a celebration of an ancient network and a rallying cry to reclaim what has been lost and preserve it for future generations.
The Lost Paths is available now for £20. We have signed copies while stocks last.
We recently hosted an author talk with Chantal Lyons where she spoke about her book Groundbreakers: The Return Of Britain’s Wild Boar. In this book, Chantal moves to the boar’s stronghold of the Forest of Dean to get up close and personal with this complex, intelligent and quirky species, and she meets with people across Britain and beyond who celebrate their presence – or want them gone.
In this guest blog post, Chantal shares where in the UK you can visit these wonderful animals:
When the celebrated critic and cultural historian Alexandra Harris returned to her childhood home of West Sussex, she realised that she barely knew the place at all.
As she probed beneath the surface, excavating layers of archival records and everyday objects – bringing a lifetime’s reading to bear on the place where she started – hundreds of unexpected stories and hypnotic voices emerged from the area’s past. Who has stood here, she asks; what did they see?
From the painter John Constable and the modernist writer Ford Madox Ford to the lost local women who left little trace, these electrifying encounters – spanning the Downs, Poland, Australia, Canada – inspired her to imagine lives that seemed distant, yet were deeply connected through their shared landscape.
By focusing on one small patch of England, Harris finds ‘a World in a Grain of Sand’ and opens vast new horizons.
