He tackles the Icknield Way, a route which claims to be Britain’s oldest roadway and existed long before the Romans came to Britain, he risks the “Broomway”, a perilous and deadly path fringed by quicksand and susceptible to the racing tides of the Essex coast and he tramps the Cairngorms en route to the funeral of his Grandfather, a man of mountainous country. He sleeps rough in wild landscapes, wakes (literally) with the larks and furnishes an obsession with great wanderers of the past including, most notably, the soldier poet, Edward Thomas. MacFarlane writes economically and beautifully, he brings vividly to live the sheer “joie de vivre” that simply putting one foot in front of another can awaken in us.

He visits the mountains of Spain and the Himalayas, all the time linking the pathways on which he treads to their history and the history of the landscape around them and the people who have used it and called it home. In the book the author sets out to explore, “the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads and sea paths that form part of a vast network of routes criss-crossing the British landscape and its waters.” In addition to his exploration of the ancient landscapes of Britain he strays further afield looking at how pathways in Palestine are linked to a sense of a whole people’s historical identity. It is quite simply, a stunning book and one that should be on the bookshelf of every walker and outdoor enthusiast. I have recently finished reading The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane.

The old ways macfarlane