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4th Estate An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018 Copyright © Gregory Norminton 2018 Cover illustration by John Walker Map and Hare, wood ant and bee-eater drawings by John Walker Gregory Norminton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008243753 Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9780008243777 Version: 2018-07-23 In memory of my mother, Catherine Norminton-Mallein (1946–2015) Those that despise Scotland, and the north part of England, for being full of vast and barren land, may take a view of this part of Surrey, and look upon it as a foil to the beauty of the rest of England; … here is a vast tract of land, some of it within seventeen or eighteen miles of the capital city, which is not only poor, but even quite sterile, given up to barrenness, horrid and frightful to look on, not only good for little but good for nothing … DANIEL DEFOE, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain It is not a celebrated patch of Earth. There are few books and no ballads about it. It is four thousand acres of plantation pine, grassland and heath, hemmed in by roads and houses and industrial estates. In autumn the air smells of mushrooms, in summer of resin and the slough of pine needles. There is a Roman road and an Iron Age hill fort. Few locals visit either, for our lives are too hectic: we drive everywhere and rarely walk. Yet set out on foot, at dawn, and you can sense the ancient place beyond the pines. Open to the sky. Fully itself perhaps only when experienced. Made by the eye that sees it. RICHARD BOROWSKI, The Blasted Heath The Roman road; the eagle’s flight … the meeting of present, past and future. VALERY LARBAUD Contents 1
