John Akeroyd

Read this book and you’ll see why our meadows are so precious

A review of Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Meadow, by John Lewis-Stempel. An extended essay that mixes science, observation and history with a lot of love.

Meadow pipit [Getty Images/Shutterstock/iStock/Alamy] 
issue 07 June 2014

This book is a portrait of one man’s meadow. Our now almost vanished meadowland, with its tapestry of wildflowers, abundant wildlife and rich human history, has long attracted English writers. Modern meadow books are usually copiously illustrated in colour to reach the coffee-table market, but John Lewis-Stempel bravely relies on lively elegant prose.

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