Somerville, Christopher – The Bell Bookshop

The Times Britain’s best walks

Emma — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Wade through pastures of meadowsweet, savour the smell of stone and earth, and delight in the beauty of Britain’s landscapes with this new edition of The Times Britain’s Best Walks.

More than just a basic guidebook, this is a meditation on our relationship with the landscape and a celebration of all that Britain has to offer.

From Cornwall to Shetland via Pembrokeshire and Barrowdale, this is the most comprehensive collection of walks in the United Kingdom available in one book, and features trails to suit all skill levels and references, whether you want a gentle ramble to the pub or something much more challenging. Featuring a selection of 200 new routes – with a handful of classics – chosen by Christopher Somerville, who has travelled the length and breadth of the UK on foot and written about its landscape, wildlife and history for more than 30 years.

Each of the featured walks contains:

Detailed description as featured in The Times column

Postcode and OS grid reference start point

Simple step-by-step walk instructions

Beautiful colour photography

Full colour, clear and up-to-date map

Food recommendations for the hungry traveller

Featuring stunning photography and using Christopher’s trademark wit and lyricism, this is the perfect gift for ramblers anywhere.

Walking the bones of Britain

Emma — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

‘Somerville’s infectious enthusiasm and wry humour infuse his journey from the Isle of Lewis to southern England, revealing our rich geological history with vibrant local and natural history’ Observer

‘A meticulous exploration of the ground beneath our feet. Glorious’ Katharine Norbury

‘A remarkable achievement’ Tom Chesshyre

‘His writing is utterly enticing’ Country Walking
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The influence Britain’s geology has had on our daily lives is profound. While we may be unaware of it, every aspect of our history has been affected by events that happened ten thousand, a million, or a thousand million years ago.

In Walking the Bones of Britain, Christopher Somerville takes a journey of a thousand miles, beginning in the far north, at the three-billion-year-old rocks of the Isle of Lewis, formed when the world was still molten, and travelling south-eastwards to the furthest corner of Essex, where new land is being formed. Crossing bogs, scaling peaks and skirting quarry pits, he unearths the stories bound up in the layers of rock beneath our feet, and examines how they have influenced everything from how we farm to how we build our houses, from the Industrial Revolution to the current climate crisis.

Told with characteristic humour and insight, this gripping exploration of the British landscape and its remarkable history cannot fail to change the way you see the world beyond your door.

‘Somerville is a walker’s writer’ Nicholas Crane

Walking the bones of Britain

Emma — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

‘[Somerville’s] infectious enthusiasm and wry humour infuse his journey from the Isle of Lewis to southern England, revealing our rich geological history with vibrant local and natural history.’ Observer
‘An illuminating take on the British landscape … a remarkable achievement. ‘ – Tom Chesshyre
‘A meticulous exploration of the ground beneath our feet. Glorious.’ Katharine Norbury
‘Somerville is a walker’s writer.’ Nicholas Crane
‘His writing is utterly enticing.’ Country Walking
‘‘The physical book is sumptuous, with helpful supplementary materials including colour photographs, a timeline, maps and walking route resources.’ Times Literary Supplement
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Travelling a thousand miles and across three billion years, Christopher Somerville (walking correspondent of The Times and author of Coast, The January Man and Ships of Heaven) sets out to interrogate the land beneath our feet, and how it has affected every aspect of human history from farming to house construction, the Industrial Revolution to the current climate crisis.

In his thousand-mile journey, Somerville follows the story of Britain’s unique geology, travelling from the three billion year old rocks of the Isle of Lewis, formed when the world was still molten, down the map south eastwards across bogs, over peaks and past quarry pits to the furthest corner of Essex where new land is being formed by nature and man.

Demystifying the sometimes daunting technicalities of geology with humour and a characteristic lightness of touch, Somerville’s book tells a story of humanity’s reckless exploitation and a lemming-like surge towards self-annihilation but also shows seeds of hope as we learn how we might work with geology to avert a climate catastrophe.

It cannot fail to change the way you see the world beyond your door.

The view from the hill

Emma — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In Christopher Somerville’s workroom is a case of shelves that holds 450 notebooks. Their pages are creased and stained with mud, blood, flattened insect corpses, beer glass rings, smears of plant juice and gallons of sweat. Everything Somerville has written about walking the British countryside has had its origin among these little black-and-red books. During the lockdowns and enforced idleness of the Covid-19 pandemic, Somerville began to revisit this rough treasury of notes, spanning forty years of exploring these islands on foot. The View from the Hill pulls together the cream of this unique crop, following the cycle of the seasons from a freezing January on the Severn Estuary to the sight of sunrise on Christmas morning from inside a prehistoric burial mound. In between are hundreds of walks to discover randy natterjack toads in a Cumbrian spring, trout in a Hampshire chalk stream in lazy midsummer, a lordly red stag at the autumn rut on the Isle of Mull, and three thousand geese at full gabble in the wintry Norfolk sky. Best of all, you don’t have to stir out of your chair to enjoy these walks. Just stir up the fire, fill your glass, and let Christopher Somerville take you out of here and far away.

The View from the Hill

Emma — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Ships Of Heaven: The Private Life of Britain’s Cathedrals

Emma — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

‘Somerville is one of our finest gazetteers of the British countryside. He brings his formidable knowledge to bear on his personal quest to explore the cathedrals in this entrancing book’
The Spectator

Christopher Somerville, author of the acclaimed The January Man, pictured cathedrals as great unmoving bastions of tradition. But as he journeys among Britian’s favourites, old and new, he discovers buildings and communities that have been in constant upheaval for a thousand years. Here are stories of the monarchs and bishops who ordered the construction of these buildings, the masons whose genius brought them into being, and the peasants who worked and died on the scaffolding. We learn of rogue saints exploited by holy sinners, the pomp and prosperity that followed these ships of stone, the towns that grew up in their shadows.

Meeting believers and non-believers, architects and archaeologists, the cleaner who dusts the monuments and the mason who judges stone by its taste, we delve deep into the private lives and the uncertain future of these ever-voyaging Ships of Heaven.

‘Somerville paints word pictures of exquisite quality’
Church Times

Walks In The Country Near London

Emma — Sat, 01 Feb 2003 00:00:00 +0000

This compact guide describes in detail 25 country walks, all within an hour of central London by public transport.