Two Degrees West: A Walk Along England's Meridian

by Nicholas Crane

What is England and who are the English? There is a line from one end of England to the other. This is the line of longitude - 2 degrees west - and it describes a cross-section through the country. The author follows this line as closely as physically possible on foot - terrain ranging from open moorland to urban back-streets. The line begins at Berwick-on-Tweed on the border with Scotland and runs south through the wilds of Northumberland and includes the Yorkshire Dales, Pennines, Birmingham suburbs, Cotswolds, Salisbury Plain, Dorset and Isle of Purbeck.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, British Literature

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Distilled from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas... accessed 07-Aug-2012:

Nicholas Crane (born 6 May 1954) is an English geographer, explorer, writer and broadcaster was born in Hastings, East Sussex, but grew up in Norfolk. He attended Wymondham College from 1967 until 1972, then Cambridgeshire College of Arts & Technology (CCAT), a forerunner to Anglia Ruskin University, where he studied Geography.

In his youth he went camping and hiking with his father and explored Norfolk by bicycle which gave him his enthusiasm for exploration. In 1986 he located the pole of inaccessibility for the Eurasia landmass travelling with his cousin Richard; their journey being the subject of the book “Journey to the Centre of the Earth.”

He married Annabel Huxley in 1991. They live in Chalk Farm in north-west London and have three children.

In 1992/3 he embarked on an 18-month solo journey, walking 10,000 kilometres from Cape Finisterre to Istanbul. He recounted that expedition in his book “Clear Waters Rising: A Mountain Walk Across Europe” which won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award in 1997. He made a television self-documentary of the journey in “High Trails to Istanbul” (1994).

Together with Richard Crane he was awarded the 1992 Mungo Park Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for his journeys in Tibet, China, Afghanistan and Africa.

His 2000 book “Two Degrees West” described his walk across Great Britain in which he followed the eponymous meridian as closely as possible. More recently he published a biography of Gerard Mercator, the great Flemish cartographer.

In November 2007 he debated the future of the English countryside with Richard Girling, Sue Clifford, Richard Mabey and Bill Bryson as part of CPRE's annual Volunteers Conference

Since 2004 he has written and presented four notable television series for BBC Two: Coast, Great British Journeys, Map Man and Town.

Reviews

[^ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't think of anyone else who would even think of defining their expedition by such an unusual restriction as a 2,000 metre corridor down the length of Britain; let alone carry that resolution through into action.

So as a 'signed-up' (certifiable?!) fan of the author, I just had to buy this book. What a delight. Not only do we have a fascinating record of the ingenuity required to achieve such a long distance walk within such self-defined constraints; but as I read I pondered if perhaps those restraints had heightened the author’s powers of conversation and observation; as he immersed himself in the enclosure of his ‘run’. His sensitive ear for humour is delightful, because he never loses sight of his own (realistic) limitations. Yet in this book he also rails with an understandable grief for the unthinking changes which damage our landscape, and hurt our society.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a wonderful celebration of England and the English. I do hope that it encourages/has encouraged city dwellers to put on their walking shoes, learn how to read an OS sheet, and get out to explore, on foot, parts of Britain they have only seen (or perhaps haven’t even seen) on film, television, and the internet.

[H. Daley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just what a travel book should be, informative and entertaining .

[Mark Glover]

I often lament the fact that the age of exploration in its truest sense seems to be dead and that the world as we know it seems to have been largely documented with no great white empty spaces left on the maps to entice adventurers away from their homes. Nicholas Crane however proves that the age of exploration is far from dead and buried and that even in the most familiar of environs a few steps off the well trodden path can offer revelations you might never have imagined existed so close to your doorstep. This book, the follow up to his truly awe inspiring Clear Waters Rising takes the adventure on your doorstep principle to extremes as he plots a line following the 2 degree line of longitude as it cuts its way down through the heart of the country, giving himself the incredibly limiting corridor of just one kilometre each side of the line in which to wend his way across the land scape. What emerges is a journey of happenstance, improvisation and delightful discovery, so much so, that I would argue it matches up to just about any exploration book I have read. Crane is at his madcap best, adhering to his parameters with a dedication that rivals any of the explorers of days past, few of whom I could imagine trying to improvise a river crossing wearing a children's swimming ring and holding shopping bags stuffed with soccer balls! That he endures throughout, sleeping under motorway bypasses and often out in the open suggest both a hardiness and a passion for adventure that would put all but the most determined of us to shame. More than this though the detailed descriptions of the places he visits and the people he meets along the way make this books a joy to read. Crane has a way with language that few can match and his portraits of the characters he encounters are so detailed and vivid they seem almost like your own interactions by the time he has finished describing them. I can think of few authors I have read who have such a great ability to sum up the character of a person in just a few lines and it is a skill that makes me wish that he wrote a lot more despite my affection for his TV work. What comes across in his writing as well as his TV work is his passion, intelligence and inquisitive nature and it is something that makes his works a pleasure to read. I cannot recommend his books highly enough and would suggest them to anyone who still craves the excitement of reading about true adventure by a very skilled wordsmith.

[Pondering Pig Newton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the book, although I would have liked it better if the book had focused more on the walk itself. He tends to drone on a bit about tedious people that he meets along the way. Or maybe they're not tedious, it's the way he writes about them that's tedious.

[Venky · Rating 3 out of 5]

An invigorating account of a true travel where an intrepid Nicholas Crane traverses the path taken by the longitude. Made into a documentary for the BBC, the travellogue is interspersed with humour and heroics.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit detailed, and tough to follow the geography (for this American) without constantly referring the map in the front of the book. But, overall, it was interesting.

[Jake Lunniss · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1494 the first prime meridian was drawn through the Azores islands by the crowns of Portugal and Castile under the terms of the Treaty of Tordesillas, as the two kingdoms wrangled over possession of the globe in the aftermath of Christopher Columbus' discovery of America. This artificial division of the earth became a feature of the subsequent trading of territories between rival kingdoms. By 1884, as a result of the British Empire's commercial pre-eminence, the globe's prime meridian was definitively drawn through Greenwich. By 1938 the line two degrees west was chosen as England's prime meridian running as it did through most of the country, from Berwick-Upon-Tweed on the Northumbrian coast to the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. Guided by his Ordnance Survey map, Nicholas Crane's book *Two Degrees West* walks the longitudinal tightrope of this most manmade of geographical lines, stretching nearly 600 kilometres from north to south, never deviating more than a few metres either side of the meridian. The result is a diverse cross-section of England in the late 1990s, from the bleak agrarian world of Northumbria and the Pennines to the racial and urban hybridity of the Black Country. *Two Degrees West* is an idiosyncratic, offbeat travel book, offering a unique view on the state of the nation at the end of the 1990s. -- *Jerry Brotton* , author of *Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World*

[PAUL · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. To cut a long story short it's basically a walk from Berwick upon Tweed to Poole Harbour along the Two Degrees West meridian. The author is clearly an eccentric, and as this book was written in 1999, is probably now a fully-fledged lunatic.
His mathematics leaves a lot to be desired however. On page 210 we meet Anne Alexander, a news reporter on the Sandwell Chronicle, who was born in 1970 according to Crane. Two paragraphs later he states she was a teenager in the mid and late 1970's.
On page 331 Crane informs us that the celebrated smuggler Isaac Gulliver marries the local innkeeper's daughter in 1768 and dies a free and wealthy man in....1882 !
But don't be put off by my nitpicking. It's a thoroughly enjoyable read.

[John Ollerton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cracker of a book comprising history, beautiful prose, funny and thoughtful, a perfect armchair travellers book. It was interesting to see how life has changes from the observations of 1999 to the present day. Also Nicholas Crane’s father sounds like quite a chap. It was fascinating to walk with the author through the changing landscape include some great descriptions of the Black Country canals and foundries.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt a bit like Nick Crane must have done completing his walk when I got to the end of this book. I don't know why I struggled with this book as there was interesting information throughout but it just didn't have that gripping element to keep me marching on.

[Anna Bowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good old dollop of British crazy.
An enjoyable wander - up hill, down dale, across moor and city.
Now I REALLY want a made to measure walkingstick/umberella.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoroughly engaging book giving a wide and varied account of people and places in the search for modern day Englishness.

[Jonathan Freeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting well written travel book which takes you to parts of England that travel writers don't usually visit. Not going to set the world alight but recommended.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this book four stars after I first read it (in 2000) and I can just about see why. Crane's enthusiasm and knowledge seemed formidable and I was down-right impressed at the whole venture. To see England and stick rigidly to a 2 kilometre corridor no matter what the obstacle. I'm a whole lot less impressed now.
My first objection is the mock heroic of it all. What Paul Theroux would class as a false ordeal. Yes, it's a long walk and there were a few difficulties to overcome; it rained from time to time, there were hills in the way, footpaths didn't always fit nicely into his corridor, he had to cross some rivers, a reservoir and two motorways. The rivers either had bridges, or were wadable with water below thigh depth. There was a tunnel under one motorway and a bridge over the other and he got boat rides across any significant open water. He also had considerable back up and time and money were obviously not a concern to him. The two degrees barely came into it except as something to keep referring back to as if something depended on it. We see through it when in the Black Country a girl at a hotel reception desk told him that somebody else was doing the walk. We get a little hissy fit. How dare someone else be doing it. It was his idea, and obscure and pointless enough to be unthought of by anyone else.
Pointless and not particularly challenging. He emphasises again and again how he must stay within his boundaries and overcome all obstacles. There aren't many obstacles that can't be bypassed if you are allowed a kilometre either side of it.
My next objection is that his choice of route limits what you see. I like to make the journey in my head and maybe plan to follow in the footsteps when I'm reading a travel book. Geographers like a cross section but they aren't always of great interest to non geographers. (I'm a geographer). This problem is further exacerbated by our hero who sees the world in a certain way. So we only get what one man sees in a limited cross section of the country. What this man sees is what you'd expect from a number-loving, train-spotting ex-public-schoolboy with a dominating father and a strongly developed sense of society being run according to nineteenth century military outlook and eighteenth century social hierarchies. At times it reads like a pamphlet for the countryside alliance, at others he's dismissive of working people as being quaint and strangely loyal while devoting page after page to meetings with wealthy people. It's a a narrow and inaccurate picture that emerges.
I don't doubt the enthusiasm. Well I don't doubt that he is enthusiastic. One can't help feeling that there is an added layer of it to sell the book to the reader. (The book led onto Crane getting many series of 'Coast' on the BBC and that same enthusiasm is there.) It appeals strongly to certain people but, from many years of teaching I can say with reasonable authority, that it turns off as many learners as it embraces. It is cliquey. It belongs to the hearty outdoor types who march the moral high ground in expensive gear just as much as they march the physical high ground.
All of the above is present to an exaggerated degree in the many encounters with the military.
How about all the knowledge and learning that impressed me so much 16 years ago? Well, there was no Wiki back then so he must have spent some time in books. (With Wiki it wouldn't take very long at all). There is evidence of his having read a few chapters of Byng, Leland, Defoe and Celia Fiennes.
It isn't a bad book. In the right mood it is an enjoyable book but taken objectively it doesn't tell you very much about England historically or as a snapshot in 1999. Unless you want to know the exact costings, heights, dates built and by whom of a lot of Ordnance Survey triangulation points. It's very good indeed on those.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the late 90s, Nicholas Crane (you might know him from Coast) sets out on a mighty adventure along England's meridian, 2 degrees west. From Berwick to Poole, and setting himself a small margin of wiggle room, he has to navigate the variety of England's landscapes. From rolling hills, vast reservoirs, angry bulls, motorways, helpful (and disgruntled) landowners, and everything in between.

I really enjoyed this book which was a recommendation from my Dad.. It was a dense read, with no chapters or natural break points. It's written as a reflective diary, with the author sharing no two places in the same way. On some days he shares vivid descriptions of the English landscape, others conversations with those he meets along the way. Sometimes an encounter triggers a memory.

Albeit a bit dated, this view on the country and its people is so great. Beyond the physical feat of this journey, the way Nicholas Crane describes it makes it even more special.

[Frannie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Also only skimmed this one (in order to grade a student essay). It seems to have that mix of history & modern politics & people that I find to be the ingredients for my favorite kind of "travel" writing. Yet, I also didn't mind jumping around - never felt compelled to become engrossed in it. It's the story of a young man (30ish - a frequent "adventure" traveler - he's biked through Italy to Greece, etc., etc.) who walks a line of longitude from top to bottom of England. In 1997 (Princess Diana dies during his trek).

[AJW · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this travel book. Far far more than I expected to. It was very well written and Nicholas Crane has become my Most Wanted Ideal Dinner Guest for the amusing anecdotes he'd be able to share. It's the book I'd loved to have researched and written myself.

My one small criticism is that he measures everything in kilometres rather than miles.

[Mrs.A. Rees-Simkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun and fascinating walk though Britain. NC sticks rigidly (well within a couple of hundred yards) to the line of longitude ,at one point even taking a boat across a stretch of water rather than deviating around it. He also writes very informatively about maps and the history of the Ordnance Survey. First class travel writing.

[Dave Gerrard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicholas Crane walks the length of England within a strip 2km wide. Despite this, the book meanders widely across space and time. It's both historical and geographical and full of special little encounters with diverse people of England circa 1997.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting book.

Nick Crane journeys along the UK's longest meridian - 2 degrees west of the Greenwich meridian. Well worth a look - full of interesting people, places and stories.

[Tracey Wilde · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit slow going but quite interesting

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read with some very funny bits. I followed the whole journey on an os map as I read it. wonderful insight into the different parts of our fantastic country.

[Gill Mazonas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very hard going. Gave up. Did learn about some intetesting facts thougj

[Pádhraic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would definitely recommend this book to a friend!

[Katy W · Rating 2 out of 5]

A strange idea to do and strange to write about, too.

[Stuart Rushbury]

Excellent, easy read

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read, fascinating zany travelougue through Britain. Well recommeded.