All the Wide Border: Wales, England and the Places Between

by Mike Parker

A funny, warm and timely meditation on identity and belonging, following the scenic route along the England–Wales border: Britain’s deepest faultline.

There is a line on the map: to one side Wales, small, rugged and stubborn; the other England, crucible of the most expansionist culture the world has ever seen. It is a line that has been dug, debated, defined and defended for twenty centuries.

All the Wide Border is a personal journey through the places, amongst the people, and across the divides of the border between England and Wales. Taking in some of our loveliest landscapes, and our darkest secrets, this is a region of immeasurable wonder and interest. It is there that the deepest roots and thorniest paradoxes of Britishness lie. The border between the countries, even as a concept, is ragged, jagged and many-layered.

Garlanded author Mike Parker has adored and explored these places his entire life. Born in England but settled in Wales, he finds himself typical of many in being pulled in both directions. His journey is divided into three legs, corresponding with the watersheds of the three great border rivers: the Dee in the north, the Severn in the centre, the Wye in the south. Neither quite England nor Wales, the furzy borderland he uncovers — the March — is another country. A hefty schlep from everywhere, these are A. E. Housman’s ‘blue remembered hills’ — his ‘land of lost content’ — and ours too.

Picking apart the many notions and clichés of Englishness, Welshness and indeed Britishness, Mike Parker plays with the very idea of borders, our fascination with them, our need for them, and our response to their power. In his hands, England–Wales border is revealed to be a border within us all, and it is fraying, fast.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, History, Audiobook, British Literature, Nature, Biography

320 pages, Hardcover

Published March 30, 2023

Reviews

[Kate Holton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed his writing style and linguistically gifted descriptions. However, as my home town is Chepstow and I now live near Chester, I would dispute some of his assertions which spoiled my enjoyment of the book as a whole. His obvious dislike of Chester "everything is a sham" for example, seems to have coloured his view of the Roman history of the city. I agree that Chepstow seems more Welsh than years ago but to describe it now as "unambiguously Welsh " is not how I see it. The other border places he has described so lovingly do make me want to linger there more frequently however.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful journey through the Welsh Borders, my husband’s homeland. I’d heard so much from him about many of the places described and it was intriguing to hear more about them in this audiobook. A little geography, a sprinkle of sociology, a heap of history mixed together with the author’s experiences and opinions.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this varied dive into the complex and malleable borderlands of England and Wales. It eloquently encompasses everything from history, geography and the politics of recent years.

[granolabars · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slow one but I did learn a lot about border history and identity !!

[Paul Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book for anyone who enjoys good travel writing and especially so if they have an interest in Wales and its relationships with its neighbour. With meticulous research, on the ground and in the library, All the Wider Border describes the geography, history and significance of the border between the two countries with beautifully told stories of some of the characters and issues which have been most important over the centuries.

100 miles long as the crow flies but 160 miles on the ground the border weaves its way with more history than logic from Chester to Chepstow. Its formal legal origins go back to the Henrician Acts of Union of 1536 and 1543 but there have been some adjustments over the centuries. At the same time the geographical border has not always acted as the cultural boundary between the two countries with areas of Welsh influence in some parts of England and vice versa. Perhaps the sharpest division came with the passing of the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act of 1881 (the first piece of legislation to apply specifically to Wales) which led to a weekly exodus of Welshmen across the border in search of a Sabbath pint.

As Mike Parker acts as our guide through the border counties he introduces us to a wide range of characters: the poet AE Houseman, the novelist Mary Webb, the engineer Thomas Telford, builder of the Chirk and Pontcysllte viaducts, landowners of different hues and senses of social responsibility such as the Grosvenors and Williams Wynn families, Tom Rolt, the founder of the Inland Waterways Association, the campaigner Frank Owen, the bookshop king of Hay on Wye, Richard Booth (King Richard Coeur de Livres) and the playwright Denis Potter all with their individual connections with and contributions to the border lands. Similarly with places: Llanymynech with its golf course with 15 holes in Wales, 2 in England and one split between the two, Montgomery a site of medieval diplomacy, Chester, Chepstow and many others.

Mike Parker is one of those great writers who can alternate seamlessly between humour and seriousness. This is not just a travelogue or book of anecdotes. It tackles with earnestness and insight the subject how the landscape and history of a border can speak of the ancient relationship between Wales and England and what that means for the present as well as the past.

[Charlotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed - far too much waspish conjecture on people and places or praise for capricious and cruel muscle-flexing by the Senedd - all of which soured an otherwise fascinating read.

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an immediate 'I'll have that' when I spotted this in a charity shop - I live only about ten miles from the England-Wales border, and am fairly familiar with the area, and fond of it. Regrettably though, I found this all a bit tedious. Well researched, plenty of history, plus the usual anecdotal bits of the author visiting villages and meeting people... but I just wasn't massively impressed/enraptured. Maybe the wrong book at the wrong time. Maybe I've read a few too many similar books which do this kind of thing better. Maybe it having a fair amount on places about which I'm familiar meant I already knew most of the best bits, and the rest was 'meh' in between.

[Jonathan Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is part love letter to the borders, and part reflection on the political identity and history of Wales.

It is a very well researched, well written, and well thought out book.

Fascinating.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Trojan Horse of a book. This guy (Mike Parker) lures you into reading the first few chapters with some wonderfully picturesque and colourful Shropshire tales which genuinely make you fall in love with the Salopian Frontier. By page twenty you’re googling ‘Shropshire Day’ and wearing so much blue and yellow (to match the flag) that the Ukrainians on the bus are giving you grinning thumbs up of appreciation.

 However, Parker’s book quickly takes a turn for the eye-rolling when he starts on about the brilliance of Wales during the pandemic and how much he hates Chester. The Trojan Horse is in through the gates of Troy and is disembarking fifty years of super-boomer views which run along the lines of “things were better in my day” and "I love meeting up with strangers from Facebook” (pp. 182). Tourists are vile, the English have no sense of community and the Royal family should be abolished.

Obviously, that last comment (saved until the epilogue) had me pondering whether I should embrace Hitler’s legacy and start burning books. This one specifically, but also Danny Cipriani’s autobiography.

To summarise, read up to page 55 then give up. Post page 55, things get quite moany…quite boomer…quite Welsh. And no one wants that.   

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful read that reawakens the history of a once unsettled border and tells us something of those who have lived, and continue to live, within it's complex embrace. Anyone who has walked all or part of Mike Parker's journey will learn much that is new.

[Sophy H · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is bloody fantastic!! I got it as a library loan and enjoyed it that much, I've had to order a copy for myself to keep.

Mike Parker does a fabulous job of discussing all things border between England and Wales. What made it fascinating for me is that my husband and I have lived in quite a few of the places he mentions which makes it all the more relevant and interesting.

We get everything from ancient Kings and feudal battles to sources of the River Wye to the Welsh language, bridge building, weather, old dwellings, farming and rearranging county borders. This book has something for everyone.

A brilliant read which I'm definitely going to read again (hence me desperately now making room on my shelves by getting rid of old no longer wanting to read books!)

[Jaden, · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5-ish. Interesting, but lacked personality. It was less exploring than I hoped & expected, more facts dump.

[Ronald Schoedel III · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started before my summer in Wales, finished it shortly after arriving home in the States. Great bookends for a lovely summer holiday, reading about the magic and mystery of the Marches. This book has introduced me to so many new places to someday explore along the border. The witty commentary and observations track closely my own experiences in the “places between” England and Wales.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The prose in this book is undeniably gorgeous - Parker’s descriptions of the rural environments his travels of the border find him in are lush and evocative. The social and political histories of these places are very fascinating to read, as is the rumination on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the identities, communities and overall lives of the people who live there.
The book loses me halfway through when Parker’s (admittedly transparent) dislike of certain places and counties begin to become apparent. As someone born and raised in Chester, I am intimately aware of the flaws of my hometown, but Parker’s portrayal of the city as anti-Welsh, upper class and at times deeply unattractive rang as shallow and wilfully ignorant of the working class community culture in the city, a culture praised in the Welsh settlements discussed throughout.
The ideas that this book present are pertinent and absolutely should be steeped into any modern discussions about the future of the Union, but the obvious bias towards the portrayal of the England-Wales relationship as the bully and the bullied sours me to the authors’s opinions and intentions. Of course a history of domination exists between the two nations, but at times it felt like huge oversimplifications had drained a lot of the nuance from Parker’s arguments. This book is a wonderful starting point into any history of Wales and England and the places in between, but in my opinion there exists so much more interesting work that can be done on this long overlooked area.

[Kizzia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since I have lived on the Welsh/English border for the past 20 years and found Mike through his excellent book “On The Red Hill” last year I had the hardback of this on pre-order the minute I heard it was coming out. There’s always a danger with books you’re anticipating that they won’t live up to your internal hype but this one exceeded all the expectations I had for it.

It is a living history of place, person, and ideas. Built on his own experience, the experience of others both living and dead and mixing literature, politics, economics, culture and what it means to have an identity tied to the land you occupy the text asks as many questions as it answers, leaving you with a sense of have been on a journey without ever having left your seat.

Mike writes deftly, carefully, humourously and with a lightness of touch that belies the depth of his perception. In other hands the topics he discusses as he makes his way down the border would become a leaden polemic, in his they weave together to form a picture of this part of the land, and the people who live on it, that is at once bleak, beautiful and filled with hope.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read though I’m bemused as to why the book started in the middle of the Marches instead of in the north or south. It certainly needed better and more maps; I can’t remember the last time I needed my tablet open all the time so I could find the location of places mentioned. It definitely needs an index too.
Though he mentions that the first Prince of Wales was actually born in Wales, he doesn’t say that his investiture was in Lincoln, almost the furthest point from the country!
I particularly enjoyed the last section, this being the area I know well.

[Jools · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need more than five stars for this book! Beautifully written, meticulously researched, great to read to yourself or to read aloud to others. An absolute corker of a book!! Read it! Gift one to a Welsh person and make their year!

[Tony Hands · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, insightful and well informed. Ideal for anyone wanting to explore the borderlands.

[Martha Uhlig · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5/5 adorei!!

[Rebecca 🦦 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this book so much! It’s a bit of a slow burn going into historical, political and current differences in england and wales along the border but thoroughly interesting

[Emily Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book about life and the history of the Welsh/ English border. Loved the stories as the author toured the area and understanding that national identity is complex. Highly recommend

[Rhys David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the book some really good stories about the various places. The only critique is I need to hear less about the authors political views and more about the topic in hand!

[Kaya Purchase · Rating 3 out of 5]

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[David Holford · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few years back I spent some days in the Welsh borderlands. My plan to go walking in the Lakes District with my friend Simon had been scuppered when both of us (old crumbles) injured our respective ankles and I found myself arriving in England with a week to spare before my wife Maria arrived from Australia. So I drove from Manchester airport to Chester, a town rich inn history which I had never seen before, had a sandwich from Sainsbury's in the churchyard of the cathedral and wandered along the city walls for a while, then drove onward to Liverpool, the city from which various of my ancestors had departed during the 1800s on the long sail to Australia. I had a look at Birkenhead, where my great grandfather was born, then drove south to see, Bishops Castle, Shropshire, where his mother was born, in Shropshire, England and Welshpool in present day Powys, in Wales, where his parents married. I stayed in a delightful town called Montgomery, climbed the hill to its ancient castle, and marvelled at the view over the River Severn to the hills in the west. I was stunned by the beauty of the landscape I beheld, amazed at the relative absence of tourists even in the midst of the northern summer. I wondered about my ancestors leaving this gorgeous place to settle, eventually, in the (now) inner city suburb of Newtown in Sydney. Had they really achieved a better life, the dream of all migrants everywhere since time began? But I had to remind myself that life was different in the 1860s to now.

This book therefore caught my attention when it turned up on my social media feed - advertised by a local bookseller. It was said to be "a wise, warm and timely meditation on identity and belonging, following the scenic route along the England-Wales border." I must say I enjoyed it very much. It is essentially a travel book, but certainly one to whet my appetite even more for a part of the world which would not otherwise cross my mind. I can thank my ancestors for that, since without them I would never have read a book on the Welsh borderlands. Although there is much historical reflection in the narrative, it is quite contemporary, making it immediate in a way that will have disappeared in 20 years time, but which for all that it made it interesting for me. It didn't really have much to say about the places that feature in my family story, which is perhaps what I had hoped, but it gave me a strong desire to see more to this area from which my ancestral family had come. Having said that, my great great grandfather was Scottish, and only ended up here after he left the Highlands in the 1840s and moved south to Great Malvern, in Worcestershire, a good way south west of Welshpool where he married. Though Great Malvern is hardly more than mentioned in the book, it is halfway between the River Wye and the River Severn, two of the three rivers that give this book its structure (the other is the Dee), and as such, lies in the area that is the focus of this book.

It is indeed a book about identity and belonging, as the back cover says, and given the fact that this is a recurring theme for any like me who are exploring a family history that has involved migration, moving across borders, it is a stimulating read. I highly recommend it.

[Rhys Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up a couple of months ago as I’ve crossed this border a fair few times in my life!

Mike Parker covers the border in three sections, broadly in North, middle and South sections. Blending personal experience and the physical geography with the history and politics of these places, I learned a lot about the borderlands.

It examines some more interesting the characteristics of each country. For England this is probably the sense of a “lost” country from the generation before which has lasted for centuries. For Wales the chip on the shoulder, characterised by defeat and marginalisation.

The most obvious problem is the influence of Covid on the writer. This seems to have crystallised the border in some senses in a way that nothing else has (or may ever in future) which makes it less instructive for how the border usually functions.

Even though Parker acknowledges the traits of the Welsh psyche mentioned above he’s also guilty of perpetrating them with his injections of personal politics (even acknowledging his own run for MP as a Plaid candidate). Maybe an acute self of sense awareness propelled these or maybe a complete lack of it.

It’s still a good book for anyone interested in or connected to the areas of the border though.

[Thomas McCall · Rating 1 out of 5]

A truly appalling book.

As a Welsh speaking Welsh man from West Wales I was intrigued about reading a piece of (what was advertised as) a piece of reportage along the England / Wales border. Instead, interspersed with florid observations on the nature and landscape of the area is a polemic railing against Union flags, English speakers, the wrong kind of Welsh speaking Welsh person (which would undoubtedly include me) and the Westminster Government.

Five years on since the start of the pandemic and the fall of the Colston statue and the book is painfully outdated. The references to the lasting effect on the relationship between England and Wales unproven, the Welsh Government's poor handling of the pandemic skimmed over and an insistence that this is the last gasp of the United Kingdom.

What Parker mistakes is his own parochial and narrow minded interests for those of the majority of Welsh people. As a result, the book is only part travelogue and much more of a hectoring lecture full of purported grievances, half true and wrong history and a slanted politicis which has little in common with anyone except the socialist fringe.

[Benjamin Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mike Parker delivers a snapshot of the history, landscape, people and culture of the border area between England and Wales. Written around the time of Covid-19 lockdowns, the differences in approach between Westminster and Cardiff highlight the significance of a border which is often hard to identify on the ground.

Despite visiting this area often, I learned a lot about the places from this book. With each chapter being centred on a ‘what three words’ location, it sparked my desire to visit each one and look for the places mentioned. The extensive reading list is also a gold mine.

The book is sprinkled with Mike’s own personal reflections on the places, mixing in his own memories and impressions which adds a personal touch, feeling we are on the same journey together. Those not of the same political opinions may sometimes disagree.

[Joseph Walliker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic, wonderful read! Parker did a fantastic descriptive job on this book. Without it, I doubt I would have enjoyed it as much. Reading it felt like you were right there with the author as he journeyed through the borderlands. This only intensified as he wrote of the Wye valley, a corner of God's creation that I've grown up in. Amazingly, he also challenged my stereotypes of Chepstow, my home town. Wholeheartedly recommend.
The only detraction in this book is that Parker is prone to overemphasize the politics for me. Some of it is just not needed and he doesn't really try to link some of it into the book.

[Luke · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was expecting this book to be full of stories about going for a long hike through Wales and England. But it’s not.
It is very poetically written (complicated, sometimes incomplete sentences). He seems to look at a site and write about the history of the site - but he does not start the story at the beginning. Rather, he seems to assume that every reader is already an expert in Welsh history, and so names can be dropped without explaining anything.
The maps are also useless, hand-drawn things that only show about 10% of the towns mentioned.
There are black-and-white picture printed throughout that are really nothing to look at.

[Rob Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

In first chapters describing a chant of opposing fans to Chester FC 'you re Welsh and you know you are' as an insult, is true to their supporters as they a fiercely English supporters from an English border city. More context should have been provided.
Interesting history of the votes in the Welsh counties about whether they should stay 'dry' ie not have alcohol on sale on Sundays. Those of us of a certain age can remember these times , however we are also aware that there may have also been exemptions eg hotel residents.- Currently reading on from Chapter 3 .