An evocative and inspiring memoir’.Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Groundand winner of Costa Novel Award 2021 I first came across Nicola Chester, winner of the 2021 Richard Jeffries Award for Nature Writing, at the Talking Place symposium organised by Women Talk Place, where she enthusiastically read sections of On Gallows Down to us. As she spoke about the protests against the Newbury bypass road-building project in the 1990s, I realised that our lives had overlapped when I was living in Reading and, like Chester, I had taken food to the tree-top protesters. Since it was built, I have travelled along the bypass many times. I immediately felt a sense of connection and wanted to know more.

On Gallows Down is a book (a memoir of landscape and place as much of a person) of several threads and themes that twist and twine together into a narrative rope. But the main strands are of place, protest and belonging. I want to take this opportunity to expand just a little, on what I mean by those themes – though to these writers, they may mean very different things indeed. That’s the joy of creative and personal interpretation. There's lots of fascinating information about the wildlife she sees and how the changes in areas has impacted on the animals and their habitats, as well as the history of places she lived in, that it made for an absorbing read, and one that has made me more determined to do what I can for local areas and wildlife so that more can be protected and saved for future generations. It changed everything for me. I learned to critique, not just literature but also film, art and other media, and really write; to see more than one side of a story, to see depths and make my own interpretations. I loved those years. They allowed me the freedom to dream and study and write,” she says.One element of belonging is an ethic of care. To belong in a place is to have a stake in its future. Chester not only has skin in this place, but her head and heart are also fully invested in her care for the corner of Berkshire she calls home. She recounts a life of protest against the destruction of the place she loves, beginning with the protests against nuclear weapons at Greenham Common in the 1980s, which she observed as a teenager, followed by taking part in protests against the building of the M3 route across Twyford Down, the Newbury bypass protests and ending with a protest against the destruction of a local woodland. Chester’s life has been shaped by fighting against the threat of environmental destruction. I’ve read and loved his books and to give that a modern voice would be a wonderful aim to have. I think he shows the rural countryside in a way that is warts and all, yes it’s beautiful but also there is poverty and difficulty.” Nicola said: “I think my love for nature stems from childhood. Wherever we have lived we have found nature, we have found woods and we have explored them and most of all loved being in them.” Nicola Chester Ref: 34-0221 (50385854) So many times the wild characters that fill the book with life and lustre: the birds, trees and the landscape itself are introduced with piercing clarity but seemingly only as a prelude to the accounts of their displacement and destruction. Some of these, the author’s own eye-witness statements, are excruciating; the dislocation and loss that she feels so deeply is powerful and painful. It is deeply moving, with an emotional rawness that is sometimes uncomfortable to read. The human characters too are often somewhat tragic, not least the unnamed gamekeeper who at first is a much needed friend and ally, Chester’s guide and access to places she could not otherwise go, but who eventually reveals himself as something darker, and derails what they have been trying to achieve through his own conceit.

Bob Mortimer wins 2023 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction with The Satsuma ComplexThis walk climbs to the interesting structure of Combe Gibbet and continues on to Inkpen Hill. The gibbet was erected in 1676 for the purpose of gibbeting the bodies of George Broomham and Dorothy Newman. The gibbet was placed high on Gallows Down as a detterent to other criminals. It's now a popular tourist destination with great views and a number of footpaths to follow through the surrounding countryside. The hill is also a popular climb for cyclists with a number of bridleways to follow across Inkpen and Walbury Hill. From the girl catching the eye of the “peace women” of Greenham Common to the young woman protesting the loss of ancient and beloved trees, and as a mother raising a family in a farm cottage in the shadow of grand, country estates, this is the story of how Nicola Chester came to write – as a means of protest. The story of how she discovered the rich seam of resistance that runs through her village of Newbury and its people – from the English Civil War to the Swing Riots and the battle against the Newbury Bypass. And the story of the hope she finds in the rewilding of Greenham Common after the military left, the stories told by the landscapes of Watership Down, the gallows perched high on Inkpen Beacon and Highclere Castle (the setting of Downtown Abbey). On leaving school, Chester wanted to study conservation, but this was a course for gamekeepers, and female gamekeepers were unheard of. Evocative and inspiring…environmental protest, family, motherhood and…nature.’ Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground, Costa Novel Award Winner 2021

In the distance we can see the Newbury bypass, the scene of the most famous anti-road protest in British history, an event in 1996 that radically shaped Chester’s early life. “This was our home. Had been – and still was – our playground,” she writes in On Gallows Down. “And here we were, sat round watching it all fall on TV.” The next day she was on the frontline. An evocative and inspiring memoir.’ Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground and winner of Costa Novel Award 2021 Part nature writing, part memoir, On Gallows Down is an essential, unforgettable listen for fans of Helen Macdonald, Terry Tempest Williams, and Robin Wall Kimmerer. There is a book launch at Hungerford Bookshop on October 9, which will include a signing, a reading and an interview with Nicola.

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On Gallows Downis a powerful, personal story shaped by a landscape; one that ripples and undulates with protest, change, hope – and the search for home. I was living alone with an 18-month-old baby in a remote cottage as my husband had been called up to Iraq. I spent all my time walking outdoors and one day when walking through a wood a huge herd of fallow deer came galloping up towards us on a narrow ride. Combe Gibbet is a gibbet at the top of Gallows Down, near the village of Combe, Hampshire. It stands on the footpath, at the boundary of parishes and counties, and is named after the village of Combe. Over the ridge is the Berkshire village and parish of Inkpen. It is built on top of a long barrow known as the Inkpen long barrow. The long barrow is 200 feet long and 70 feet wide. This is close to the massive hill fort on Walbury Hill. Nicola regularly goes out walking and exploring. Her favourite footpath goes up Gallows Down, starting in Inkpen and heading towards Combe Gibbet.

adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments. The library is a fantastic place. It’s not just about books, but about ideas and digital information literacy, and a real flow of that goes on between the students. It’s almost like anything can happen in there.”It’s been an absolute privilege and pleasure to curate a response to the themes in my book, On Gallows Down, and I am thrilled to have some truly exciting, moving and thoughtful pieces by some truly wonderful writers that I admire very much, lined up for you. Nicola Chester won the BBC Wildlife Magazine's Nature Writer of the Year Award - this is her first book.