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On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging
***Shortlisted for the James Copper Wainwright Prize 2022 for Nature Writing - Highly Commended***
***WINNER of the Richard Jefferies Award 2021 for Best Nature Writing!***
"It's ever so good. Political, passionate and personal."--Robert Macfarlane (via Twitter), author of Underland
Part nature writing, part memoir, On Gallows Down is an essential, unforgettable read for fans of Helen Macdonald, Terry Tempest Williams, and Robin Wall Kimmerer.
"I couldn't put it down! A must read!"--Dara McAnulty (via Twitter), author of Diary of a Young Naturalist
On Gallows Down is a powerful, personal story shaped by a landscape; one that ripples and undulates with protest, change, hope--and the search for home.
From the girl catching the eye of the "peace women" of Greenham Common to the young woman protesting the loss of ancient and beloved trees, and as a mother raising a family in a farm cottage in the shadow of grand, country estates, this is the story of how Nicola Chester came to write--as a means of protest. The story of how she discovered the rich seam of resistance that runs through her village of Newbury and its people--from the English Civil War to the Swing Riots and the battle against the Newbury bypass. And the story of the hope she finds in the rewilding of Greenham Common after the military left, the stories told by the landscapes of Watership Down, Hampshire, the gallows perched high on Inkpen Beacon and Highclere Castle (the setting of Downtown Abbey).
Nature is indelibly linked to belonging for Nicola. She charts her story through the walks she takes with her children across the chalk hills of the North Wessex Downs, through the song of the nightingale and the red kites, fieldfares, skylarks, and lapwings that accompany her; the badger cubs she watches at night; the velvety mole she discovers in her garden; and the cuckoo whose return she awaits. On Gallows Down tells of how Nicola came to realize that it is she who can decide where she belongs, for home is a place in nature and imagination, which must be protected through words and actions.
"We are writing for our very lives and for those wild lives we share this one, lonely planet with."--Nicola Chester
BBC Countryfile Magazine's "Best Nature and Countryside Books of 2021."
***WINNER of the Richard Jefferies Award 2021 for Best Nature Writing!***
"It's ever so good. Political, passionate and personal."--Robert Macfarlane (via Twitter), author of Underland
Part nature writing, part memoir, On Gallows Down is an essential, unforgettable read for fans of Helen Macdonald, Terry Tempest Williams, and Robin Wall Kimmerer.
"I couldn't put it down! A must read!"--Dara McAnulty (via Twitter), author of Diary of a Young Naturalist
On Gallows Down is a powerful, personal story shaped by a landscape; one that ripples and undulates with protest, change, hope--and the search for home.
From the girl catching the eye of the "peace women" of Greenham Common to the young woman protesting the loss of ancient and beloved trees, and as a mother raising a family in a farm cottage in the shadow of grand, country estates, this is the story of how Nicola Chester came to write--as a means of protest. The story of how she discovered the rich seam of resistance that runs through her village of Newbury and its people--from the English Civil War to the Swing Riots and the battle against the Newbury bypass. And the story of the hope she finds in the rewilding of Greenham Common after the military left, the stories told by the landscapes of Watership Down, Hampshire, the gallows perched high on Inkpen Beacon and Highclere Castle (the setting of Downtown Abbey).
Nature is indelibly linked to belonging for Nicola. She charts her story through the walks she takes with her children across the chalk hills of the North Wessex Downs, through the song of the nightingale and the red kites, fieldfares, skylarks, and lapwings that accompany her; the badger cubs she watches at night; the velvety mole she discovers in her garden; and the cuckoo whose return she awaits. On Gallows Down tells of how Nicola came to realize that it is she who can decide where she belongs, for home is a place in nature and imagination, which must be protected through words and actions.
"We are writing for our very lives and for those wild lives we share this one, lonely planet with."--Nicola Chester
BBC Countryfile Magazine's "Best Nature and Countryside Books of 2021."
256 pages, Paperback
Published January 31, 2023
18 people are currently reading
374 people want to read
About the author
Nicola Chester
3 books8 followersNicola is a professional, reliable, published writer with over eighteen years experience. She is a Country Diarist for The Guardian and writes for BBC Countryfile Magazine, the RSPB’s Nature’s Home and BBC Wildlife Magazine.
Other articles, features and book reviews have appeared in The Telegraph, The Financial Times, Berks, Bucks and Oxon’s Wildlife Trust’s Magazine, Berkshire Life and Earthlines.
Writing in an engaging, accessible, literary and lyrical style, Nicola can turn her writing hand and imagination to most subjects, so do ask!
Nicola writes a well-regarded Nature Notes column for the IMG_3102Award-Winning Newbury Weekly News (circ, 20,000) that explores local wildlife, landscape, weather and our relationship with it – and has done so for seventeen years. She is the longest-running female columnist for the RSPB members magazine Nature’s Home (formerly Birds, 1.3 million readers).
Nicola has also written for many years for the RSPB’s Junior Magazine Bird Life and has covered all manner of topics from Lichens to Wildcats, Fungi to Dormice, Lo Energy Parties and ideas on How to Curate your own Natural History Museum.
Other articles, features and book reviews have appeared in The Telegraph, The Financial Times, Berks, Bucks and Oxon’s Wildlife Trust’s Magazine, Berkshire Life and Earthlines.
Writing in an engaging, accessible, literary and lyrical style, Nicola can turn her writing hand and imagination to most subjects, so do ask!
Nicola writes a well-regarded Nature Notes column for the IMG_3102Award-Winning Newbury Weekly News (circ, 20,000) that explores local wildlife, landscape, weather and our relationship with it – and has done so for seventeen years. She is the longest-running female columnist for the RSPB members magazine Nature’s Home (formerly Birds, 1.3 million readers).
Nicola has also written for many years for the RSPB’s Junior Magazine Bird Life and has covered all manner of topics from Lichens to Wildcats, Fungi to Dormice, Lo Energy Parties and ideas on How to Curate your own Natural History Museum.
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October 8, 2021An evocative and inspiring memoir which touches on environmental protest, family, motherhood, and, most importantly, nature.
December 15, 2021
Nicola Chester was born in Petersfield but was always on the move because of her father’s job. Her earliest memories were of chalk downland, seen as they moved across Hampshire and into Berkshire before she moved to Pangbourne at the age of eight. It was here on this housing estate that she fell head over heels in love with nature> She was wild, free and happy in the fields alongside the houses, playing in the River Pang and water meadows.
But all my best memories, of love and family and living have been spent outdoors in nature. How can we stop fighting for this?
Another move to Greenham felt like a body part was being removed, but she soon felt at home in the natural world again as she discovered what was new around there. But it was also a realisation that not everywhere was accessible. This once common ground had been seized for the use of the RAF and it became the home of the American Nuclear force. It was also the home of the peace camp full of women protesting about the presence of these weapons of mass destruction. In the same way, she became aware of the natural world, Chester realised that land and who owned it and was granted access was a political issue.
It was an eye opening moment.
It is the natural world that is her bedrock and that enables her to cope with all that life throws at her and that she writes about in this book. We hear about the tragedies and the moments of joy, but not in a way that is overwhelming as a reader. She gets angry about the way that the landowners treat wildlife on their property and their disregard for life as they drench it in chemicals. But there are stories of hope and success too, Greenham Common can now be accessed by anyone again and it is buzzing with life around the brutal missile hangers. In this narrative, she weaves the history of the place as seen through other writers such as Richard Adam and John Clare.
A landscape doesn’t forget its stories. It wears them like lines on an old face, markings on an old body.
This is a searingly honest and open memoir of her and her families life set in the chalk downs of Wiltshire and I really liked it. Chester is a beautiful writer, she has a knack of describing what she sees in the most evocative way. But at its heart, this book is political; it is a critique of the still existing feudal system, tied houses and oppressive landowners that still dominate our country and ride roughshod over our rights and the natural world and a reminder that we need to stand up against these vested interests.
But all my best memories, of love and family and living have been spent outdoors in nature. How can we stop fighting for this?
Another move to Greenham felt like a body part was being removed, but she soon felt at home in the natural world again as she discovered what was new around there. But it was also a realisation that not everywhere was accessible. This once common ground had been seized for the use of the RAF and it became the home of the American Nuclear force. It was also the home of the peace camp full of women protesting about the presence of these weapons of mass destruction. In the same way, she became aware of the natural world, Chester realised that land and who owned it and was granted access was a political issue.
It was an eye opening moment.
It is the natural world that is her bedrock and that enables her to cope with all that life throws at her and that she writes about in this book. We hear about the tragedies and the moments of joy, but not in a way that is overwhelming as a reader. She gets angry about the way that the landowners treat wildlife on their property and their disregard for life as they drench it in chemicals. But there are stories of hope and success too, Greenham Common can now be accessed by anyone again and it is buzzing with life around the brutal missile hangers. In this narrative, she weaves the history of the place as seen through other writers such as Richard Adam and John Clare.
A landscape doesn’t forget its stories. It wears them like lines on an old face, markings on an old body.
This is a searingly honest and open memoir of her and her families life set in the chalk downs of Wiltshire and I really liked it. Chester is a beautiful writer, she has a knack of describing what she sees in the most evocative way. But at its heart, this book is political; it is a critique of the still existing feudal system, tied houses and oppressive landowners that still dominate our country and ride roughshod over our rights and the natural world and a reminder that we need to stand up against these vested interests.
October 13, 2021
Newbury (and West Berkshire in general) may not be flashy or particularly famous, but it has natural wonders worth celebrating and a rich history of rebellion that Nicola Chester plumbs here. A hymn-like memoir of place as much as of one person’s life, her book posits that the quiet moments of connection with nature and the rights of ordinary people are worth fighting for.
So many layers of history mingle here: from the English Civil War onward, Newbury has been a locus of resistance for centuries. Nicola* has personal memories of the long-running women’s peace camps at Greenham Common, once a U.S. military base and cruise missile storage site – to go with the Atomic Weapons Establishment down the road at Aldermaston. As a teenager and young woman, she took part in symbolic protests against the Twyford Down and Newbury Bypass road-building projects, which went ahead and destroyed much sensitive habitat and many thousands of trees. Today, through local newspaper and national magazine columns on wildlife, and through her winsome nagging of the managers of the Estate she lives on, she bears witness to damaging countryside management and points to a better way.
While there is a loose chronological through line, the book is principally arranged by theme, with experiences linked back to historical or literary precedents. An account of John Clare and the history of enclosure undergirds her feeling of the precarity of rural working-class life: as an Estate tenant, she knows she doesn’t own anything, has no real say in how things are done, and couldn’t afford to move elsewhere. Nicola is a school librarian and has always turned to books and writing to understand the world. I particularly loved Chapter 6, about how she grounds herself via the literature of this area: Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, Adam Thorpe’s Ulverton, and especially Richard Adams’s Watership Down.
Whatever life throws at her – her husband being called up to fight in Iraq, struggling to make ends meet with small children, a miscarriage, her father’s unexpected death – nature is her solace. She describes places and creatures with a rare intimacy borne out of deep knowledge. To research a book on otters for the RSPB, she seeks out every bridge over every stream. She goes out “lamping” with the local gamekeeper after dark and garners priceless nighttime sightings. Passing on her passion to her children, she gets them excited about badger watching, fossil collecting, and curating shelves of natural history treasures like skulls and feathers. She also serves as a voluntary wildlife advocate on her Estate. For every victory, like the re-establishment of the red kite population in Berkshire and regained public access to Greenham Common, there are multiple setbacks, but she continues to be a hopeful activist, her lyrical writing a means of defiance.
You know that moment when you’re reading a book and spot a place you’ve been or a landmark you know well, and give a little cheer? Well, every site in this book was familiar to me from our daily lives and countryside wanderings – what a treat! As I was reading, I kept thinking how lucky we are to have such an accomplished nature writer to commemorate the uniqueness of this area. Even though I was born thousands of miles away and have moved more than a dozen times since I settled in England in 2007, I feel the same sense of belonging that Nicola attests to. She explicitly addresses this question of where we ‘come from’ versus where we fit in, and concludes that nature is always the key. There is no exclusion here. “Anyone could make a place their home by engaging with its nature.”
*I normally refer to the author by surname in a book review, but I’m friendly with Nicola from Twitter and have met her several times (and she’s one of the loveliest people you’ll ever meet), so somehow can’t bring myself to be that detached!
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
P.S. My husband and I attended the book launch event for On Gallows Down in Hungerford on Saturday evening. Nicola was interviewed by Claire Fuller, whose Women’s Prize-shortlisted novel Unsettled Ground is set in a fictional version of the village where Nicola lives.
Nicola dated the book’s genesis to the moment when, 25 years ago, she queued up to talk to a TV news reporter about Newbury Bypass and froze. She went home and cried, and realized she’d have to write her feelings down instead. Words generally come to her at the time of a sighting, as she thinks about how she would tell someone how amazing it was.
Her memories are tied up with seasons and language, especially poetry, she said, and she has recently tried her hand at poetry herself. Asked about her favourite season, she chose two, the in-between seasons – spring for its abundance and autumn for its nostalgia and distinctive smells like tar spot fungus on sycamore leaves and ivy flowers.
So many layers of history mingle here: from the English Civil War onward, Newbury has been a locus of resistance for centuries. Nicola* has personal memories of the long-running women’s peace camps at Greenham Common, once a U.S. military base and cruise missile storage site – to go with the Atomic Weapons Establishment down the road at Aldermaston. As a teenager and young woman, she took part in symbolic protests against the Twyford Down and Newbury Bypass road-building projects, which went ahead and destroyed much sensitive habitat and many thousands of trees. Today, through local newspaper and national magazine columns on wildlife, and through her winsome nagging of the managers of the Estate she lives on, she bears witness to damaging countryside management and points to a better way.
While there is a loose chronological through line, the book is principally arranged by theme, with experiences linked back to historical or literary precedents. An account of John Clare and the history of enclosure undergirds her feeling of the precarity of rural working-class life: as an Estate tenant, she knows she doesn’t own anything, has no real say in how things are done, and couldn’t afford to move elsewhere. Nicola is a school librarian and has always turned to books and writing to understand the world. I particularly loved Chapter 6, about how she grounds herself via the literature of this area: Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, Adam Thorpe’s Ulverton, and especially Richard Adams’s Watership Down.
Whatever life throws at her – her husband being called up to fight in Iraq, struggling to make ends meet with small children, a miscarriage, her father’s unexpected death – nature is her solace. She describes places and creatures with a rare intimacy borne out of deep knowledge. To research a book on otters for the RSPB, she seeks out every bridge over every stream. She goes out “lamping” with the local gamekeeper after dark and garners priceless nighttime sightings. Passing on her passion to her children, she gets them excited about badger watching, fossil collecting, and curating shelves of natural history treasures like skulls and feathers. She also serves as a voluntary wildlife advocate on her Estate. For every victory, like the re-establishment of the red kite population in Berkshire and regained public access to Greenham Common, there are multiple setbacks, but she continues to be a hopeful activist, her lyrical writing a means of defiance.
We are writing for our very lives and for those wild lives we share this one, lonely planet with. Writing was also a way to channel the wildness; to investigate and interpret it, to give it a voice and defend it. But it was also a connection between home and action; a plank bridge between a domestic and wild sense. A way both to home and resist.
You know that moment when you’re reading a book and spot a place you’ve been or a landmark you know well, and give a little cheer? Well, every site in this book was familiar to me from our daily lives and countryside wanderings – what a treat! As I was reading, I kept thinking how lucky we are to have such an accomplished nature writer to commemorate the uniqueness of this area. Even though I was born thousands of miles away and have moved more than a dozen times since I settled in England in 2007, I feel the same sense of belonging that Nicola attests to. She explicitly addresses this question of where we ‘come from’ versus where we fit in, and concludes that nature is always the key. There is no exclusion here. “Anyone could make a place their home by engaging with its nature.”
*I normally refer to the author by surname in a book review, but I’m friendly with Nicola from Twitter and have met her several times (and she’s one of the loveliest people you’ll ever meet), so somehow can’t bring myself to be that detached!
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
P.S. My husband and I attended the book launch event for On Gallows Down in Hungerford on Saturday evening. Nicola was interviewed by Claire Fuller, whose Women’s Prize-shortlisted novel Unsettled Ground is set in a fictional version of the village where Nicola lives.
Nicola dated the book’s genesis to the moment when, 25 years ago, she queued up to talk to a TV news reporter about Newbury Bypass and froze. She went home and cried, and realized she’d have to write her feelings down instead. Words generally come to her at the time of a sighting, as she thinks about how she would tell someone how amazing it was.
Her memories are tied up with seasons and language, especially poetry, she said, and she has recently tried her hand at poetry herself. Asked about her favourite season, she chose two, the in-between seasons – spring for its abundance and autumn for its nostalgia and distinctive smells like tar spot fungus on sycamore leaves and ivy flowers.
October 5, 2021
This is a book that inspires you to appreciate the nature around us as the author does a wonderful job of combining her personal experiences over the years, amidst the backdrop of the ever changing world we find ourselves living in.
This is a memoir of Nicola Chester, who has found herself protesting over the years to protect the environment in various locations whilst bringing up her family, and doing what she can to pass on the knowledge and love of wildlife and nature to her children and those around her. I have nothing but admiration for this woman after reading about her life experiences, and how she writes so passionately about the natural world. Her enthusiasm is infectious and I share the same anticipation as her awaiting wildlife sightings whilst you're out for a walk.
I knew very little about some of the areas she talks about, but she brings them to life with her writing style and I also found myself googling pictures of the area to get more of a feel for the areas that meant so much to her over the years, and those areas that she fought so passionately to save and protect.
With her husband, she moved around the country over the years due to various job changes and there's always that connection to nature and the outside world that allowed her to cope with change - the nature around always seemed to give her hope and it was lovely to see her passing that interest on to her children as she had them exploring local areas with her.
There's lots of fascinating information about the wildlife she sees and how the changes in areas has impacted on the animals and their habitats, as well as the history of places she lived in, that it made for an absorbing read, and one that has made me more determined to do what I can for local areas and wildlife so that more can be protected and saved for future generations.
Thank you to the publisher, Chelsea Green Publishing, for the advanced reader copy in return for a fair and honest review.
This is a memoir of Nicola Chester, who has found herself protesting over the years to protect the environment in various locations whilst bringing up her family, and doing what she can to pass on the knowledge and love of wildlife and nature to her children and those around her. I have nothing but admiration for this woman after reading about her life experiences, and how she writes so passionately about the natural world. Her enthusiasm is infectious and I share the same anticipation as her awaiting wildlife sightings whilst you're out for a walk.
I knew very little about some of the areas she talks about, but she brings them to life with her writing style and I also found myself googling pictures of the area to get more of a feel for the areas that meant so much to her over the years, and those areas that she fought so passionately to save and protect.
With her husband, she moved around the country over the years due to various job changes and there's always that connection to nature and the outside world that allowed her to cope with change - the nature around always seemed to give her hope and it was lovely to see her passing that interest on to her children as she had them exploring local areas with her.
There's lots of fascinating information about the wildlife she sees and how the changes in areas has impacted on the animals and their habitats, as well as the history of places she lived in, that it made for an absorbing read, and one that has made me more determined to do what I can for local areas and wildlife so that more can be protected and saved for future generations.
Thank you to the publisher, Chelsea Green Publishing, for the advanced reader copy in return for a fair and honest review.
January 4, 2025
A beautifully and intelligently written book about place, home, connection and attachment.
Nicola Chester writes poetically yet honestly. Her experience of place is moving, haunting, inspiring yet saddening. It is heartbreaking to think of all the environmental and habitat loss that has occurred due to man-made issues and corporate greed.
I found Nicola Chester to be warm and heartfelt in her words; the only surprise I had was how long it took her to realise that the "friendly gamekeeper" was in actual fact, a complete c**t! In my experience, gamekeepers are all cut from the same cloth and are about as custodial to nature as the current government is to its elderly and impoverished! I'm glad she calls him out in the book.
An excellent and thoroughly enjoyed read.
Nicola Chester writes poetically yet honestly. Her experience of place is moving, haunting, inspiring yet saddening. It is heartbreaking to think of all the environmental and habitat loss that has occurred due to man-made issues and corporate greed.
I found Nicola Chester to be warm and heartfelt in her words; the only surprise I had was how long it took her to realise that the "friendly gamekeeper" was in actual fact, a complete c**t! In my experience, gamekeepers are all cut from the same cloth and are about as custodial to nature as the current government is to its elderly and impoverished! I'm glad she calls him out in the book.
An excellent and thoroughly enjoyed read.
September 28, 2022
This is a moving memoir about the writer's relationship with nature and the social history of her local environment, particularly the protests over the centuries by the rural poor against enclosure and mechanisation.
I enjoyed her writing about the birds on her doorsteps, the seasonal comings and goings of plants, trees, wildlife, and her experience of mothering her three children.
It's heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measures, charting the ongoing destruction of precious habitats but also the conservation efforts of the more enlightened.
I enjoyed her writing about the birds on her doorsteps, the seasonal comings and goings of plants, trees, wildlife, and her experience of mothering her three children.
It's heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measures, charting the ongoing destruction of precious habitats but also the conservation efforts of the more enlightened.
January 22, 2024
A wonderful read. I loved this book. I'm quite familiar with the area (though from slightly east of where it's set) and love how Nicola Chester brought out all the layers of history and personal meaning in the places in the book. Also all the family strands were so heartfelt and genuine. And the nature descriptions and how she interacts with and absorbs it were breathtaking. Nicola's narration (and bird calls) on Audible were beautiful. Tempted to go back and listen again now...
August 30, 2024
John Clare would have been proud
August 28, 2022
A wonderful book, at times heartbreaking( I cried at the end ) at others uplifting. Nicola Chester writes with honesty and empathy, bringing alive the countryside where she lives. We are all charged with protecting nature and the environment in which we live, we need to protect it for the future.Not everyone gets this but what is most upsetting is when those who work on the land seem to have little care or knowledge of what they are doing. A book which needs to be read by everyone.
February 21, 2022
I really enjoyed this book. I struggled a bit initially (I usually read fiction). Living in the area covered in the book enhanced the passion of returning to old haunts and stirred up forgotten memories. It’s certainly heartfelt and encourages the reader to get back out there and make the most of the natural world, while we still can
December 11, 2021
Such a beautifully written book. Nicola paints such evocative pictures it’s like you are there with her lying back in the grass next to the hare, watching the kits swoop past the bedroom window or seeing the bulldozers move across the Newbury bypass. Just magical
October 7, 2021
Wonderful.
November 17, 2021
An absolute masterpiece. This book is so tender, so genuine and pure. It is so easy to get lost in Nicola’s poetic words. It is a book that everyone should read!
Want to read
March 10, 2022Mentioned in Slightly Foxed The Real Reader’s Quarterly No. 73 Spring 2022 - On Juniper Hill by Nicola Chester
July 26, 2024
A beautiful book on belonging somewhere and what we should do to protect it. Her words are beautiful and I read it at the right time.
January 28, 2025
This was a well written account of a life spent in nature and fighting to protect the natural world. I listened to the audio book read by the author and found it perfect listening while gardening.
August 5, 2023
This was a rare personal new book purchase, a pre-order indeed. I found it a particularly likeable, personal and distinctive nature book... in a way that, oddly, I have not felt about many other books based on some traumatic and redemptive individual circumstances.
This is a memoir based firmly in a broad area of England, roughly speaking around Newbury, crossing county lines (no, not like that) and involving names familiar to so many of us: Greenham Common, the Newbury Bypass, and even Highclere aka Downton Abbey. It takes us from her childhood through to her children being just about grown up and various writing gigs and a book published alongside day jobs in libraries... and some remarkable changes of nature's fortune.
I most remarked the experience of being an environmentalist, a rural, often 'tied', tenant and a mother all at once. Oh yes, there is plenty of yearning, but she is not a whiner. I loved her subverting comment about 'the pram in the hall' and the complexities of relationships. I was shocked by the working conditions of rural workers, where the very reasons that make someone such a valuable employee are used against them, as if this is a religious vocation not the means of earning a living and supporting a family.
It's a book about dramatic events and big passions, about huge losses and (some) remarkable redemptions and yet it feels wonderfully, warmly, even keeled.
This is a memoir based firmly in a broad area of England, roughly speaking around Newbury, crossing county lines (no, not like that) and involving names familiar to so many of us: Greenham Common, the Newbury Bypass, and even Highclere aka Downton Abbey. It takes us from her childhood through to her children being just about grown up and various writing gigs and a book published alongside day jobs in libraries... and some remarkable changes of nature's fortune.
I most remarked the experience of being an environmentalist, a rural, often 'tied', tenant and a mother all at once. Oh yes, there is plenty of yearning, but she is not a whiner. I loved her subverting comment about 'the pram in the hall' and the complexities of relationships. I was shocked by the working conditions of rural workers, where the very reasons that make someone such a valuable employee are used against them, as if this is a religious vocation not the means of earning a living and supporting a family.
It's a book about dramatic events and big passions, about huge losses and (some) remarkable redemptions and yet it feels wonderfully, warmly, even keeled.
April 4, 2023
This started brilliantly, with the wider picture, but by the end, instead of standing back in admiration of the authors work, I felt utterly excluded from the very local world she inhabits, and a wave of inadequacy came over me. I felt slightly sick with a surfeit of simile, although if the author genuinely goes straight back to write down in words what she might find hard to express in person that is understandable. I found myself thinking ‘ I’d like £5 for every time something was ‘like’ something else ‘. Nothing was simply itself. I feel peevish even thinking this, as others know her and she’s obviously lovely. Perhaps if I knew the area I’d feel different. I just don’t like books that make me feel as if Im not part of the clique. My issues. Sorry Nicola.
July 25, 2024
Some lovely descriptions of countryside, home, family and so on, and passionate arguments about nature conservation, habitat loss, wildlife extinction, and some interesting historical facts. I have lived in Newbury, near the location of the story, for 50 years and I remember the Aldermaston marches, the peace women, the razor-wired perimeter fence of Greenham Common, etc, so it was particularly meaningful. But... a bit repetitive, some sentences that didn't quite make sense, too ecstatic on hearing a cuckoo, too devastated on a tree being demolished. The issues raised are extremely important, but a better argued, slightly less emotional discussion would make this a more significant contribution to saving the planet.
September 19, 2025
A wonderful book which evokes the beauty of the countryside with lyrical intensity and passion. Chester writes in the honoured tradition of Gilbert White, Richard Mabey and Mark Cocker. She interweaves the politics of environmental action with her own personal life and her passionate commitment to saving our endangered countryside, from Greenham Common to battling the Newbury Bypass project, she manages to bring up three children and write regular nature columns and savour her life on the North Wessex Downs to the full despite economic precarity and the. continued destruction of our countryside and wildlife. Unputdownable.
October 16, 2023
An excellent account of the author's experiences of the natural world, with some excellent insights into the behaviors of insect, bird and animal. But running throughout is a sense of anger at what we have done and allowed to be done in the name of progress by those who claim to own the land. Each chapter features a place, a creature or a passage of the writer's life. I particularly appreciated the reminders of Greenham Common in the 80s and the challenging world of tenanted farmers and farm workers from the days of the enclosures to modern times.
November 9, 2022
On Gallows Down is spectacular. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that’s so successfully captured how I feel about nature. I’ve cried and laughed and related HARD to so much of it. Nicola conveys that raw, pure, indescribable, deep love for nature and place so brilliantly. It’s leapt straight onto my list of all-time favourite nature books. I shall treasure it. Reread it. Recommend it. You have to read this book!
November 21, 2022
Tried twice to read this book - once in preparation for an environmental reading group, and once after the reading group when all the other participants enjoyed it - but failed to get much more than a third of the way through. Nicola Chester writes about nature and protest and history and the meaning of home, but there never seemed to me any sense of narrative journey that made me want to read to the end.
August 8, 2024
This book is beautiful, sad, nostalgic nature writing. I found myself waking up early to read chapters in the quiet before work with tears streaming down my face and couldn't tell you why, but probably because it made me think about cuckoos coming home to empty fields where forests used to be. It made me think of everything we could have if the rich few didn't take it from us for their own greedy reasons. It made me think about the things people do to protect the nature they love.
February 29, 2024
It's poetic and resonant and full of revealing imagery and stories of a type of life - and I think it picks up as it goes on - but, perhaps much like life itself, there isn't much of a thrust or narrative too it. Overall it seems too much like a parade of pretty images and local stories which can only be partially understood by a city boy like me!
November 11, 2022
Interesting, but not all of it believable.
August 23, 2023
Poetic language but didn't manage to tell what may have been an interesting story. Too many words saying too little for my liking. I don't stop in the middle of many books, but this was one
March 27, 2024
Inspiring!
August 9, 2024
Excellent page-turning memoir of a significant time in history, and an important critique of what it's like to be a tenant, rather than a property owner, in the British countryside.
February 15, 2023
Fortunately, for me I borrowed this book from the library. I gave up after 5 chapters, This book was not what I was expecting. I mistakenly thought it was a historical account of Greenham Common because I knew someone who was there but didn't know much about it.
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