Literary non-fiction · Nature writing
New Wildernesses
Lost Histories and Recovered Nature
Chris Dodd
Fourteen places across Britain. Lost histories, changing landscapes and nature’s return.
Paperback and eBook
What happens when we leave nature alone?
Across Britain, there are places that were once shaped by people but that have now returned to nature. New Wildernesses explores fourteen of these landscapes, looking at their often surprising histories and the habitats and wildlife that have since made them home.
They include Wigan’s coal mines that subsided, creating a mosaic of lakes; or a Suffolk coastline facing rising sea levels. There are Pennine textile mills, now like Mayan ruins deep in woodland; and in Scotland, a large dune-field that overwhelmed farmland, the dunes up to a hundred feet high.
These places, and what I have learnt, have reshaped aspects of my life. Some simply, such as how we now care for our garden. Also, our taking on of 15 acres of land up on the valley side, that we are leaving to nature.
The book, I hope, pays attention in a new way: to the past beneath our feet, to the landscape around us, and to the possibilities of nature’s recovery.
The landscape continues beyond the book.
You can read about our garden and the wild land that form part of the final chapter.