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_________________ 'BRITAIN'S FINEST LIVING NATURE WRITER' - THE TIMES A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week' from 'indisputably, one of the best nature-writers of his generation' (Country Life) Written in diary format, The Wood is the story of English woodlands as they change with the seasons. Lyrical and informative, steeped in poetry and folklore, The Wood inhabits the mind and touches the soul. For four years John Lewis-Stempel managed Cockshutt wood, a particular wood - three and half acres of mixed woodland in south west Herefordshire - that stands as exemplar for all the small woods of England. John coppiced the trees and raised cows and pigs who roamed free there. This is the diary of the last year, by which time he had come to know it from the bottom of its beech roots to the tip of its oaks, and to know all the animals that lived there - the fox, the pheasants, the wood mice, the tawny owl - and where the best bluebells grew. For many fauna and flora, woods like Cockshutt are the last refuge. It proves a sanctuary for John too. To read The Wood is to be amongst its trees as the seasons change, following an easy path until, suddenly the view is broken by a screen of leaves, or your foot catches on a root, or a bird startles overhead. This is a wood you will never want to leave.… (more)
User reviews
Sadly I don't own my own woodland, but John Lewis-Stempel does, and his three and a half acres of mixed species in Herefordshire is a typical small wood. He has managed Cockshutt Wood now for four years, watching the way it changes through the seasons, tracing the paths that animals have made through the understory and taking time to stay still, observe as the lives of the birds and animals play out around him. He lets his cattle and pigs root around in the woods too, a method of farming that harks back centuries. Lots of these woodlands are under threat, but not this one; this is a cherished patch, a place of refuge, a place that he visits every day, just because. Woodlands show the daily march of time through the seasons and yet when you are within one, time seems to stand still.
This is another sublime book from Lewis-Stempel to add to his raft of award-winning books. I really liked the diary format and the way that it is interspersed with folklore, poems, history, recipes and personal thoughts. The longer entries reflect when he has had time to pause and absorb the sights and smells of his wood, and brief entries when he was charging off elsewhere, even the shortest of visits would be sufficient to recharge his soul. 4.5 stars