Once Upon a Hillside

Angela McAllister’s seven original stories follow the changing landscape of lives on one hillside from the Stone Age to the present day.

‘Once upon a hillside, the hedgerows were loud with sparrows and thick with blossom. Blue butterflies flitted over the anthills, lapwings danced in the big sky. And time passed…’

Beginning with a Neolithic clan, who leave an arrowhead later found by a Roman boy, then a Roman mosaic found by a medieval herbalist and her daughter, relics of past lives and people are embedded there - left in one story and found in the next. Following in their footsteps are a Civil War runaway, an eighteenth-century shepherd, a Victorian archaeologist and a nineteenth-century botanist - all play a part in the history of the hillside, just as it has played a part in their lives.

Wilderness, weather, history, archaeology and folklore infuse each tale. With gorgeous illustrations of the wildlife and surrounding landscape at different points in history, this glorious full-colour, gift book is a celebration of the enduring power of nature and lives well lived.