The Icknield Way Path

This title is one of Thomas's essays on travel, which portraits the English countryside enriched with interesting historical details. Edward Thomas (1878-1917) was a British poet, essayist, and novelist. Thomas's poems are noted for their attention to the English countryside and a certain colloquial style. His career in poetry only came after he had already been a successful writer and literary critic. In 1915, he enlisted in the British Army to fight in the First World War and was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, soon after he arrived in France. The short poem In Memoriam exemplifies how his poetry blends the themes of war and the countryside. "Much has been written of travel, far less of the road. Writers have treated the road as a passive means to an end, and honoured it most when it has been an obstacle; they leave the impression that a road is a connection between two points which only exists when the traveller is upon it." (Edward Thomas, The Icknield Way)

The Greenwich Meridian Trail is a new long-distance walk from Peacehaven in East Sussex to Sand le Mere in East Yorkshire, following the line of the Prime Meridian. The total length of the trail is 273 miles (439 km). It is divided into four parts, this guidebook covers the first part which takes you through the lovely and varied countryside of southern England and a surprisingly quiet and 'green' way through the outskirts of London to Greenwich and the Royal Observatory. The guide uses ordnance survey maps for easy route finding and is full of information about the places you will visit and stay at along the way. Good access by public transport makes it easy to do the walk in sections.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Icknield Way" by Edward Thomas. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Wednesday Wanders is a book about walking; not a guidebook with detailed route descriptions and maps, but the journal of a walker looking to broaden his horizons by seeing what could be achieved with an early start and still be home for tea (or supper more often). Weekly adventures setting out from northwest London to explore some of the long-distance footpaths of southeast England. Written in a light-hearted, humorous, but sometimes thoughtful style, it's a journal of determination and achievement sitting alongside not a little folly, with some inept navigation and unrealistic plans. More importantly, it's about what happened along the way, the fascination of places visited, the people met, the animals encountered, and perhaps most significantly, discovering the unexpected beauty and varied countryside in this corner of the country. Each chapter covers one of the seven routes attempted. Starting with the London LOOP, although this was the last walk completed. Chapter two returns to the beginning with a naïve walker setting out on the first stage of the North Downs Way from Farnham to Guildford on a wet and travel-disrupted day in early November. That chapter finishes five months later, on a bright but windy spring day, along the cliff tops into Dover. Proving that you can indeed complete a long-distance path in day trips. Five more routes are covered: the Ridgeway, Icknield Way Path, the Chiltern Way, Greensand Way, and the Hertfordshire Way. Some walks were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic or the onset of winter when the days were too short to complete their further reaches, but all were eventually finished. A thousand miles of walking recalled in a diary entry format. Each outing is dated, and the location and mileage given.

This book examines Thomas Hardy's representations of the road and the ways the archaeological and historical record of roads inform his work. Through an analysis of the uneven and often competing road signs found within three of his major novels - The Return of the Native, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure - and by mapping the road travels of his protagonists, this book argues that the road as represented by Hardy provides a palimpsest that critiques the Victorian construction of social and sexual identities. Balancing modern exigencies with mythic possibilities, Hardy's fictive roads exist as contested spaces that channel desire for middle-class assimilation even as they provide the means both to reinforce and to resist conformity to hegemonic authority.