The English West Country is a land of exceptional landscapes: many miles of wild, unspoilt coastline and vast expanses of wild moorland; great cities such as Exeter, Plymouth, Bath and Bristol; and market towns, villages and hamlets. Farming, mining, quarrying, fishing and trade are the traditional industries of the counties of Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. On one level, the West Country is the most English of all English regions, home of clotted cream, thatch, church spires, folksong, hobby horses and Cecil Sharp. Yet the area was trading with Mediterranean Europe before the Romans. For many years Bristol was the centre of the slave trade, and many of its great mansions were built on the proceeds of slavery. Great swathes of land in Dorset, Wiltshire and Devon are still used by the military and are off-bounds to visitors. And within the West Country is the special case of Celtic Cornwall, and the even more remote Isles of Scilly. People lived in the West Country long before Britain, or England, were invented. From the great stone circles of Avebury and Stonehenge in Wiltshire to the menhirs of Cornwall, and the wealth of prehistoric remains on the Isles of Scilly, this has always been an inhabited landscape, crafted by men and women working closely with nature and natural forces. John Payne explores this culturally rich and varied region, revealing many facets of its distinctive and much-loved identity.

West Country Climbs covers around 1000 of the West Country's most popular and highest calibre climbs, which span the full spectrum of climbing styles and grades; from committing multipitch sea cliff routes, to easy-going inland sport climbs. The rock ranges from the moorland and sea cliff granites of Dartmoor and West Penwith, through the geological weirdness of North Devon and Cornwall, to the multitude of limestones on parade in Devon, Somerset, Avon and Dorset.

Wherever you travel in the West Country of England you will encounter evidence of Witchcraft, past and present. Somerset, Devon and Cornwall each have their own essence and unique energy. As a whole this area has been a safe haven since the Ancient Celts and their magical beliefs, and home to many a witch. These witches have adopted many guises over the years. West Country Witchcraft looks at witchcraft in its many forms, both historical and contemporary. There are descriptions of the practitioners, their stories, tools and spells and the magical sites that are used.

You can take the man out of the city, but is the countryside ready for him? Comedian and born and bred townie, Tony Hawks is not afraid of a challenge - or indeed a good bet. He's hitchhiked round Ireland with a fridge and taken on the Moldovan football team at tennis, one by one. Now the time has come for his greatest gamble yet - turning his back on comfortable city life to move to the wilds of the West Country. With his partner Fran in tow and their first child on the way, he embraces the rituals of village life with often absurd and hilarious results, introducing us to an ensemble of eclectic characters along the way. One minute he's taking part in a calamitous tractor run, the next he's chairing a village meeting, but of course he still finds time for one last solo adventure before fatherhood arrives - cycling coast to coast with a mini pig called Titch. In the epic battle of man vs countryside, who will win out?

"A wonderful novel. . . Tim Pears combines a down-to-earth rendering of the realities of rural life with a magical sense of another world beyond our everyday experience."--Wall Street Journal From acclaimed author Tim Pears, the first novel in a sweeping historical trilogy, beginning in rural, pre-WWI England. Somerset, 1911. The forces of war are building across Europe, but this pocket of England, where the rhythms of lives are dictated by the seasons and the land, remains untouched. Albert Sercombe is a farmer on Lord Prideaux's estate and his eldest son, Sid, is underkeeper to the head gamekeeper. His son, Leo, a talented rider, grows up alongside the master's spirited daughter, Charlotte--a girl who shoots and rides, much to the surprise of the locals. In beautiful, pastoral writing, The Horseman tells the story of a family, a community, and the landscape they come from. The Horseman is a return to the world invoked in Pears' first award-winning, extravagantly praised novel, In the Place of Fallen Leaves. It is the first book of a trilogy that will follow Leo away from the estate and into the First World War and beyond. Exquisitely, tenderly written, this is immersive, transporting historical fiction at its finest.

Long confounded with a monolithic British entity or misrepresented as 'Lakers' and 'Cockneys', the diverse regional forms of 'English Romanticism' are ripe for reassessment. Ranging west of a line between the Wye at Tintern and Jane Austen's Chawton, this book offers a first reconfiguration of Romantic culture in terms of English regional identity.