Giants, Ancestors, Ruins, Argonauts
DUNAGOIL
‘glowing orangey-green hill against the wine-dark sea and Arran’s late afternoon battleship grey’ (see pages).
THE WALL AND WHIN SILL
‘it looked to us like some immense humpbacked prehistoric monster’ (see pages).
SNOWDONIA
‘The giants were there too’ (see pages).
DINAS EMRYS
‘Three times his masons and carpenters built their ramparts, and three times they fell down in the night’ (see pages).
HERE LYETH…
‘people came by sea from many parts to be buried at Cooley’ (see pages).
ALL HALLOWS, GOODMANHAM
‘Christian missionaries, at least the savvy ones, came bearing the promise of an upgrade, not a revolution’ (see pages).
ST ANDREW’S, WROXETER
‘…like the wind through woods in riot, through him the gale of life blew high’ (see pages).
ST MARTIN’s, WAREHAM
‘I stopped before the creamy-white marble effigy of a great warrior’ (see pages).
DIN LLIGWY
‘We found Din Lligwy hidden in a copse of trees, like some sacred grove’ (see pages).
DIN LLIGWY
‘Din Lligwy must have been the settlement of an elite family, the massive neatness of the stone foundations… tell of wealth and architectural pretension’ (see pages).
ROTHESAY
‘Perhaps post-Roman Britain was a genteel, faded seaside town of a land’ (see pages).
LYSTYN GWYN
‘It was as if the inhabitants had vanished minutes before, never to return’ (see pages).
ST GERMAN’S CATHEDRAL
‘…its dedication may be original and pre-date the island’s ascription to Patrick’ (see pages).
ST CYBI’S WELL
‘…it was a rather lovely spot, green and quiet and perfect for a mid-morning break; and I drank the water’ (see pages).
THE NORTH CHANNEL
‘…the sea-kingdom of the British of Rheged’ (see pages).
A DISTANT GLIMPSE OF JURA
‘It was exhilarating sailing, utterly absorbing of mind and body and lived entirely in the moment’ (see pages).
THE RIVER FROME AT WAREHAM
‘The Great Heathen Army made their headquarters here in 876’ (see pages).
ST PATRICK’S ISLE
‘Monks and traders, raiders and royal fleets found the same places convenient’ (see pages).
Encounters, Entrepreneurs, Identities, Spaces
MORAG, KYLES OF BUTE
‘Donald Clark, her owner and skipper, plucked us off the beach as cool as you like’ (see pages).
INISHOWEN — MARTIN HOPKINS, DESSIE MCCALLION, COLM O’BRIEN
‘…during that first morning on site there was a more or less continuous, and welcome, stream of visitors’ (see pages).
SOMERSET
‘this layer cake of generations of farmers, drovers, artisans and cottagers’ (see pages).
ESSEX
‘More back lanes; more rain… no one to meet by chance or talk to; no walkers of any kind’ (see pages).
HIGHLAND CATTLE, HALTWHISTLE BURN
‘…peering curiously through their fringes at gawping passers-by’ (see pages).
WHITECHAPEL
‘tensions that hold this extraordinary urban orrery in perpetual, confounding, vibrant equipoise’ (see pages).
MOVILLE, INISHOWEN
‘We had been allowed the run of Rosato’s bar… so we were guaranteed an audience’ (see pages).
WHITBY
‘…mecca for Dracula fans mostly unaware of an earlier, dramatic catharsis between opposing moral forces’ (see pages).
TRACTOR AT PORTHMEUDWY
‘It’s nice to see an old Fordson Major looking in such good trim…’ (see pages).
LONDON
‘an emporium for many nations who came to it by land and by sea’ (see pages).
MERSEA ISLAND
‘mile after mile of bright-painted beach huts’ (see pages).
TOBERMORY
‘all brightly coloured houses, crowded jetties and drunks’ (see pages).
DORSET
‘This mannered human landscape of field and hedge, wall and fence, is a very temporary borrowing from nature’ (see pages).
GLASTONBURY TOR
‘We were tolerant of one another’ (see pages).
SOUTH CADBURY
‘Let’s get the Arthurian record straight’ (see pages).
EPPING FOREST
‘one expects at any time to come upon a gingerbread cottage inhabited by cast-off children or lounging, porridge-slurping bears’ (see pages).
THE WALL
‘three plough furrows racing eastwards across the Northumbrian uplands’ (see pages).
