‘Bad things happen in woods…It’s possible that we have cleared and destroyed our woods because we fear their wildness’
Chapter 8: Blood in The Forest
Peter Fiennes’ illustrated talk on The Ancient Woods and New Forests of Britain. ‘Fiennes mixes a deep knowledge of trees with an acute eye for the best writing about them, quoting liberally from Wordsworth, Coleridge, Kipling and Tennyson. He acknowledges that the “lives we have chosen are prising us apart from the natural world, and we are more likely to experience a woodland through watching Countryfile than by breathing in the actual, living trees”, then sets out a clear path by which we might reconnect with nature…It feels set to become a classic of the genre’ The Observer
‘Steeped in poetry, science, folklore…& magic Fiennes is an eloquent, elegiac chronicler of copses…& the wildwood’ Sunday Express
‘A passionate ramble through Britain’s complicated relationship with its woodland’ Daily Mail
Peter Fiennes as publisher for Time Out published their city guides as well as books about London’s trees and Britain’s countryside. He is the author of To War With God, a moving account of his grandfather’s service as a chaplain in the First World War.

INTERVAL

Susan Owens delves into a wealth of sources – illuminated manuscripts, paintings, magic lantern slides, woodcut engravings, novels and poems – to explore how ghosts fascinate, terrify and  inspire; how they have inhabited a wide range of roles from medieval times to the present day, and how they reflect our changing attitudes, our hopes and  fears, featuring a dazzling range of artists including William Blake, Henry Fuseli and Paul Nash alongside such writers as Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, Thomas Hardy, Hilary Mantel and many more.
‘a lively guide to that most persistent of spooky figures—and to the obsession with mortality…Best to keep a light on’ The Economist
‘A work of profound scholarship and imaginative engagement’ The Literary Review
‘an eloquent and lively account’ The Observer
‘Illuminating and entertaining’ The Telegraph
Susan Owens is an art historian and freelance curator (formerly Curator of Paintings at the Victoria & Albert Museum) with expertise in British art and a particular interest in drawings and watercolours. She is co-curator of an exhibition about Christina Rossetti, opening at the Watts Gallery this year. She regularly contributes to publications including the TES and World of  Interiors.
With thanks to Chipping Campden WI