Why read On Gallows Down?

Book cover of On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging

Book description

Shortlisted for the Richard Jeffries Award 2021

[A] wonderfully accurate, powerful and funny memoir of rural life Stephen Moss

It's ever so good. Political, passionate & personal. Robert Macfarlane (via Twitter)

I couldn't put it down! A must read! Dara McAnulty (via Twitter), author of The Diary…

Explore

Topics

Genres

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked On Gallows Down as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Tessa Boase

Author

An unusually honest, rural memoir by the RSPB’s longest-serving female columnist. Chester’s writing has a lovely elasticity, dancing between wonder, introspection, and anger as she moves from the particular to the universal. I learned a lot about how Britain’s countryside is managed. I also enjoyed her more eccentric impulses, such as lying down in the snow on the edge of a field one night, just to see what might happen. She belongs to the disappearing English rural working class, and is intent on handing this baton to her three children. Chester also explores the familiar tension between wanting to write…

From Tessa's list on The best books about women, birds, and nature.