The sport of mountaineering was pioneered 150 years ago by a diverse cross-section of Victorians, following in the footsteps of earlier local explorers who ventured into the upper regions of ice and snow in search of game and minerals. By the early years of the 19th century, a growing interest in the study of geological and glaciological phenomena attracted scientific interest in the origins of the Alps. I...

In 2006, a British sparkling wine was voted best in the world. Sound too good to be true? It isn't. At the time of the compilation of the "Domesday Book" in the late 11th century, vineyards were recorded in 46 places in southern England, from East Anglia through to modern-day Somerset. By the time Henry VIII ascended the throne there were 139 sizable vineyards in England and Wales - 11 of them owned by the ...

This is a true 'Boys' Own' adventure story of how three English schoolboys spent the summer of 1863 trekking through the Swiss and Italian Alps before conquering Mont Blanc. It is an utterly unique journal written by one of that party who would go on the become one of the great mountain and travel writers of the Victorian era and make a huge contribution to the Royal Geographic Society and the Alpine Club. ...

A slim sturdy hardbacked book, essential packing for all Scottish mountain walkers. Ascent details, map references and simple location diagrams for all 284 Munros are arranged by region. Includes some colour photographs, suggested further reading and an index.

Travel writer Jim Perrin is a regular contributor to "The Great Outdoors", "Climber" and "The Daily Telegraph". This volume collects the best of his recent work and covers venues as far apart as Garhwal and Montana, Kirgizstan and the High Arctic, Hungary and Cuba. It features Perrin spending time with headhunters in Borneo, narwhal in Lancaster Sound, wolves in Yellowstone, walking with his dog through Wal...

"The peculiar formation of the great Caledonian valley - long, deep and comparatively very narrow, and occupied by a regular chain of inland lakes and extensive arms of the sea - had long suggested the idea of a canal which by connecting the whole might afford the means of a navigable communication between the opposite sides of the island. Indeed so marked were its features in this respect, that it must hav...