Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

Four difficult women who fought to preserve the English countryside

Thanks to Octavia Hill, Beatrix Potter, Pauline Dower and the ‘arrogant fanatic’ Sylvia Sayer, England’s wilder spaces remain relatively unspoilt

Portrait of Octavia Hill, after John Singer Sargent. [Getty Images]
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  • The Women Who Saved the English Countryside

    Matthew Kelly

    Yale, pp. 400, £20

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