Longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2024

Discover the rich history of Britain's millennia-old network of pathways, and it will be impossible to take an unremarkable walk again. . .

Hundreds of thousands of miles of ancient paths crisscross our land. Whether Iron Age footsteps or Anglo-Saxon mercenary trails, Railway Age tracks or Home Army defences, they reveal a hidden story.

Jack Cornish has spent years walking and recording these forgotten routes and The Lost Paths is his history of the people who created and walked these ways.

From sheep drovers to Cornish miners to workhouse wanderers, this tale of the land beneath our feet brings our past to life and puts its future squarely in our hands.