Blog Posts

Nicholas Crane: A Journey Through Britain’s Footpaths

15th Jun 2026

Nothing connects us to the British landscape more immersively than the 140,000 miles of footpaths that criss-cross our country, created and maintained by human feet from as long ago as 7,000 years – and enjoyed, prized, neglected and fought over in the centuries since. Nicholas Crane is best known as the warm and engaging presenter…
David Attenborough’s birthday is a great cue for an announcement about this year’s programme…

9th May 2026

We are delighted to announce that producer, author and director Alastair Fothergill will be speaking and showing footage of his work at our Literature & Landscape festival in October 2026. David Attenborough on location filming Life in the Freezer (1993) – one of many natural history documentary series produced by Alastair Fothergill. Life on Earth…
A Richard Mabey interview to remember

23rd Mar 2026

We were all rather blown away by this interview last October, when Patrick Barkham quizzed Richard Mabey about his long, ground-breaking and profoundly influential career. Our sell-out audience were still talking about it long afterwards, and as it turned out even the nature-writing master himself was struck by what had happened in that small but…
Encouraging rural voices of the future

8th Mar 2026

October 2025 saw the launch of Wells Young Writers’ group – a workshop run by author Patrick Barkham that meets about once a month somewhere in the landscape around Wells to notice and imagine. The young people – who are aged 12 and on upwards – then return to Wells Maltings to write and discuss…
Watch again: John Mullan interviews Alan Hollinghurst

12th Feb 2026

Please take the opportunity to catch up via our Youtube channel with talks you may have missed in 2025. Here is Booker-prize-winning author Alan Hollinghurst discussing Our Evenings last October with John Mullan – UCL professor of literature and regular pundit of all things bookish for the BBC and The Guardian. We asked Alan to…