Britain & Ireland's best wild places - Christopher Somerville

Christopher Somerville takes us a journey of discovery through Britain and Ireland, spanning their length and breadth as he seeks out 500 of his favourite Wild Places in fields and green lanes, in forests and mountains and on lonely coasts, in all of nature's moods and every kind of weather.Britain and Ireland's Best Wild Places is the key to discovering Scottish mountainsides covered in rare Ice Age flowers, Cornish standing stones and holy wells, Midlands wildflower meadows, storm-battered Welsh headlands and seabird islands, hill ranges and boglands in Ireland where only hares and skylarks go. But this adventurous book roams far beyond conventional landscapes. Among its wild treasures are medieval Green Men spewing mouthfuls of leaves, the ruins of haunted chapels deep in forgotten woods, old mines and quarries being recaptured by nature, villages where pagan rituals are still enthusiastically observed, rusting sea-forts tottering on sandbanks. Each Wild Place is enhanced with mapping and travel instructions, suggestions about walks and other useful information.Britain and Ireland are crammed full of wild places, often astonishingly close to home. Here is one man's poetical yet practical account of the state of the Wild in Britain and Ireland, how it is being both threatened and nurtured, and how - whether you are heading out for a Sunday stroll or planning your next holiday - you can go out and discover it in all its extraordinary vigour and variety.