A treasure trove of fascinating stories, little-known places and hidden gems of history, Westering is a coast-to-coast British journey from Norfolk to the Welsh coast, by an established travel writer.

From Great Yarmouth to Aberystwyth, Westering takes us across England from the Fens, Leicester, the Black Country and central Wales. It connects landscape, place and memory to evoke a narrative unravelling the deep topography, and following a westerly route that runs against the grain of the land, its geology, culture and historical bedrock.

With the industrial Midlands sandwiched between bucolic landscapes in East Anglia and Wales, here we explore places too often overlooked. Along the way we encounter deserted medieval villages, battlefield sites, the ghosts of Roman soldiers, valleys drowned for reservoirs, ancient forests, John Clare's beloved fields, and the urban edgelands. Notions of home and belonging, landscapes of loss and absence, birds and the resilience of nature, the psychology of walking, and the psychogeography of liminal places all frame the story.

Laurence Mitchell