From the Sunday Times-bestselling author of Who Owns England?, a mesmerising chronicle of our land as we have never before encountered it In 2020, Guy Shrubsole moved from London to Devon. As he began to explore the wooded valleys, rivers and tors of Dartmoor, he discovered an extraordinary habitat that he had never come across before: temperate rainforest. Entranced, he would spend the coming months exploring and researching the history and distribution of rainforest in the British Isles. Britain, Guy discovered, was once a rainforest nation.
This is the story of a unique habitat that has become so denuded and fragmented, most people today don’t realise it exists. Britain’s rainforests have been lost from both the landscape and from cultural memory, yet fragments of them remain and continue to permeate our culture in forgotten ways. Featuring trespassing botanists, Welsh wizards, lichen geeks, Sherlock Holmes, Romantic poets and Celtic druids, The Lost Rainforests of Britain takes the reader from the Atlantic hazelwoods and oakwoods of the Western Highlands, down through the Lake District, parts of the Peak District, Wales and into Devon and Cornwall, and shows how they might be restored to the places they once were.
A beautifully spun detective story, The Lost Rainforests of Britain is an unforgettable chronicle of our land – its past, present and future – as we have never before encountered it.
‘Remarkable … Shrubsole has completely changed the way many people look at the temperate woodlands that remain in parts of western Britain’ Financial Times ‘If anyone was born to save Britain’s rainforests, it was Guy Shrubsole’ Sunday Times, The Sunday Times Science Book of the Year ‘Fascinating, lyrical … A celebration of these dazzling worlds and a plea to act before they are extinguished’ The Times ‘[The Lost Rainforests of Britain] could be a lament but instead it is suffused with the irrepressible positivity and cheerful enthusiasm of a born campaigner’ Patrick Barkham, Guardian ‘Enchanting and insightful … Wonderfully evocative’ Geographical ‘Excellent … Inspiring’ Unherd ‘A treasure chest full of woodland jewels, rare, precious and beautiful’ Chris Packham ‘A magnificent and crucial book that opens our eyes to untold wonders’ George Monbiot ‘A beautiful, lyrical and urgent book … I cannot recommend it enough’ Nick Hayes, author of the Sunday Times-bestselling The Book of Trespass ‘Utterly enchanting, transporting and spellbinding … A rallying cry for restoring the rainforests of Britain urgently, and an inspiring and informative must-read for anyone interested in rewilding and ecological restoration’ Lucy Jones, author of Losing Eden ‘Passionate, powerful, political and practicable, Guy Shrubsole gives us a blueprint for how to bring our missing rainforests back to life in all their riotous, tangled glory. Impeccably researched, convincingly argued and with generous measures of joyful discovery, this really is a spectacular book’ Lee Schofield, author of Wild Fell
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