Walking the Bones of Britain: A 3 Billion Year Geological Journey from the Outer Hebrides to the Thames Estuary

by Christopher Somerville

Travelling a thousand miles and across three billion years, Christopher Somerville, author of The January Man and Ships of Heaven, sets out to discover how the land beneath our feet shapes our past, our present and our future. Britain is blessed with a vast variety of landscapes - from marshes to slate mountains, chalk downs to volcanic islands. How we live, work and eat has been moulded and shaped by wild, violent events that occurred thousands, millions, even billions of years ago - drownings and upheavals, the raging fires and frozen wastes that created the bones of Britain. Following the line of oldest exposed geology, from three-billion-year-old rocks at the Butt of Lewis in the far northwestern tip, down the map south eastwards to the furthest corner of Essex where new land is being recycled from old, Somerville travels across bogs and over peaks, through forests and national parks and along tow paths, revisiting old haunts and expert friends, picking out rare flora and fauna, as he uncover the changing landscape's buried secrets. Vivid, lyrical and evocative, Walking the Bones of Britain is a deep interrogation of the remarkable place we call home.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Science, Travel, Audiobook, Geology, Ebooks

432 pages, Hardcover

Published August 24, 2023

About the author

Christopher Somerville is a travel writer & 'Walking Correspondent' of The Times. His long-running ‘A Good Walk’ series appears every Saturday in the Times Weekend section. He has written some 40 books, many about his travels on foot in various parts of the world

Reviews

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a rich and immersive book this is. As a schoolboy, Somerville was bored by geology. He isn't now. He's fascinated by the ground beneath our feet, and the forces and events that, over the millennia, made it what it is today. For a small island, our geological story is particularly rich. Somerville undertakes to walk it, from the north of Scotland down as far, slightly oddly I thought, only to the River Thames. And this is what he does. He's curious to examine the geology of every path he takes, and to understand what effect the geological story has had on the development of the landscape and how it has been exploited by the people who live in it. He's investigative, humorous, personable in his enquiries, which makes what could be a difficult book approachable. I don't know Scotland too well, which made the first few chapters more difficult for me. But as he strode south into England, I was able to picture clearly the landscapes as he discussed and described them, and the book truly came to life. He paints a vivid picture of a land which, despite its small size, is quite incredibly varied, presenting quite different challenges to the locals who live there. As he pursues his path to the low-lying estuary of the Thames, he discusses the challenges brought about by climate-change and man's interventions over the centuries and particularly most recently. This book has opened my eyes to the landscape, both locally and more widely throughout Britain.

[Gill Stollery]

A really interesting book that taught me a lot.

[Angus McMaster · Rating 4 out of 5]

England is my city

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had all the right things in it, for me, in theory: I love walking, I like travellogues, I was a geology student in my youth, this covered areas that I knew.

From the start I realised that it was going to be hard going - not the walk, the read. Taking what I see as a fascinating subject (geology) and making it quite so dull was a shame. Snippets of social history and the walk description didn't lift it much. Sections that I knew felt skipped over compared to laboured descriptions of the past which frankly needed animated slides to follow and photos in situ rather than blocks of them in sections of the book here and there.

Overall I was quite disappointed and finished it more through bloody minded determination than a desire to read its content. By the time he'd reached the muddy outpouring of the Thames I'd long given up the will to follow.

[Glafira Regina · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book on the theme of travel. The author, a geologist by education, journeys from one end of Britain to the other, searching for ancient stones and fossils—and there are plenty of them in the country. I find this book truly unique in its own way, as it focuses on a less popular (but no less fascinating) aspect of tourism. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys long adventures in nature. But it would have been nice to have more pictures. Reading descriptions of landscapes and actually seeing them are two completely different things, and for 400 pages of text, I felt there were too few illustrations.

[Malcolm Schaffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a description of walking the length of Britain looking at the geology of the different parts of the country and how it came about.Geology can be a very boring subject but I didn’t find that in this book especially as it was helped by descriptions of the people he meets and anecdotes from the places he visits.The misery of the Penine Way is well covered as is the beauty of the Scottish Highlands and I especially enjoyed the final stage along the times.He writes very easily for my limited brain not the first book of his I have read and not the last

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whilst I enjoyed this book, I had a sense throughout that it couldn't quite make up its mind whether it was a conventional travelogue/walking book or something more, and in the end it kind of fell between two stools. Whilst exploring the geology of Britain is an interesting subject, I was left wondering if it is perhaps too vast in scope for this treatment. I finished the book feeling slightly enlightened and certainly entertained, but also slightly frustrated.

[Johanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating but I still struggle to get to grips with how geology shapes the landscape… getting better though. Also his journey is excellently described. A recommended read for anyone interested in geology, landscape history and / or walking.

[Artie LeBlanc · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm afraid that, while this is worthy and the content is broadly interesting, it didn't hold my attention. I made it all the way through Scotland, but abandoned it at the English border. I found the geology a bit too detailed for the lay reader.

[Adeptus Fringilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent exploration of what lies beneath our feet (ie rocks). It's very well written and engaging. And it's not only about rocks but also an exploration about the cultural, social, industrial and natural history of the british isles.

[Jo Birkett · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the idea but his enthusiasm unfortunately didn’t transfer to me, I stopped very soon

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

RTC

[Steve Chilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite being basically a diagonal journey from NW to SE of Britain, this is a comprehensive explanation of its geology. There are a lot of technical terms that sometimes needed checking in the glossary. The details of who the geology underlies and creates the landscape, and in many ways the culture, of the various areas was very interesting.

[Bob Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-written account of a journey through the British Isles on foot meeting interesting characters and introducing the reader to the varied and magnificent scenery with explanation as to how the land was formed through vast unimaginable time scales Great read

[Abi Pellinor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is all about the geology of the British Isles from the very tippy top. I say the very tippy top, mostly the very tippy top of the contiguous British Isles. right down to London. We go to the aisle of Lewis and he follows a route down the UK and talks about the geology and how it changes. I know that that will not be of much interest to most people, but I will say the amount that he talks about the history of each location, I really appreciated.

A lot of these places have old mining communities or they're from different manufacturing industries such as making clothes and cloth and sheep rearing etc. He's in a lot of rural places for this and he talks about the history of the area as well as the geology because of course the geology that is present influenced what people were likely to do because it was easier to in some areas raise sheep because of the soil that was there because of the rocks that were underneath. So I really enjoyed that additional section of it.

The geology as far as I know seems very accurate. It is not the easiest book to read when it comes to the geology. It's not the most friendly to an uninitiated geologist or just a regular person. There are photos that do explain some of the specific areas and they do show examples, but they're not linked directly in the text, so unfortunately this isn't the best for learning the basics of geology. But the book is very interesting and I enjoyed the historical knowledge I gained about Britain, so if you're intrigued, I would still recommend.

[Robert Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are an amateur geologist and interested in the geology of Great Britain this is the book for you. But if you are interested in hiking and the human history of the country you may find the reading repetitive and somewhat tedious. There is some history here but it’s overwhelmed by the descriptions of geological formations. Even the human constructions he describes are mainly associated with the exploitation and remediation of old mining areas. Christopher Somerville is an excellent writer and gives interesting descriptions of what he is looking at but it’s mostly about rocks, landforms and how they got to where they are.He has a good sense of humour and some of the best passages deal with his brief interactions with the locals he meets along the wet and boggy trails. More of this would have suited me better. As you read have Google at hand to provide photos of the places he visits.

Robert Barnes

[Voirrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is fascinating listening to this - a journal of many months of walking through the islands of Great Britain read by the author, and comparing it with A Walk From the Wild Edge - also an account of walking the length and breadth of the island of Great Britain, read by the author.

For the younger Jake Tyler primarily tells us of his inner self and the people he meets, with the land in a, still interesting, third place - where as Mr Somerville is fascinated by the geology and how it shapes the land - the people come in second here.

I did find I need to slow the narration down a little to fully appreciate it - but I am enjoying this journey - and learning a fair bit about geology along the way.

[Foggygirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read, one part natural history read another part travelogue.