A path on the South Downs Way in Sussex Credit: Simon Crowhurst
Cambridge academic Robert Macfarlane's new book - The Old Ways - is a remarkable excursion into the many-layered landscape of life and literature with countless stopping points along the route. Paths relate, in several senses: they join place to place, and people to people. And they also keep and tell stories." - —Dr Robert Macfarlane Few paths go straight for long. Look at the public rights of way marked on an Ordnance Survey map and you'll notice all manner of kinks and dog-legs in the green dotted lines. It's only when you walk those same paths that the wiggles on the map make perfect sense: they avoid the boggy bits, skirt the deep woods, and cross the stream at the shallowest point where the stepping stones stand bold of the dancing water. The oldest paths were made to get from A to B, connecting places for living, working, meeting and worshipping. The feet that made them had a sense of purpose that took the smoothest, safest way, following the contours of the landscape with an elegant economy.
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