ONE OF the conundrums of the great and varied British countryside is whether or not the land is more important than the literature it inspired. Or is the literature at least of equal importance for guiding us back to the land with our hearts and minds full of yet further inspiration? We all accept that Dorset is Hardy Country, that Wordsworth wandered the Lake District and when you go to Warwickshire you are ‘Welcome to Shakespeare’s England’. Exmoor belongs to Lorna Doone, the north Cornish coast to John Betjeman’s poetry and the Highlands to Sir Walter Scott and John Buchan, whose John Macnab gave rise to The Field’s own Macnab Challenge. But almost every county has literature that can heighten our love of landscape and it is a worthwhile odyssey to seek out those lesser-known places and works for inspiration.
Give a thought to Rowena Farre’s where, from a small Sutherland croft, a young girl and her aunt adopt a seal and train it to sleep on their
