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Distributed for Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Meadow

The Intimate Bond between People, Place and Plants

With Photography by Jim Holden

Distributed for Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Meadow

The Intimate Bond between People, Place and Plants

With Photography by Jim Holden
An exploration of Britain’s vanishing hay meadows: vestiges of a rural past and sanctuaries for future biodiversity.
 
The surviving hay meadows of the British Isles are an intrinsic part of the region’s cultural heritage, standing as a pastoral equivalent to the great churches, castles, and stone monuments that dot the islands. These few extant meadows provide not only a tantalizing glimpse into a pre-industrial agrarian past, but also serve as present-day biodiversity hotspots, offering home and sanctuary to hordes of organisms.

Meadow explores the intimate and complex relationships between people, places, and plants that for centuries have shaped the color and character of the classic British hay meadow. Iain Parkinson carefully curates an evocative collection of personal accounts from notable experts in the worlds of science, conservation, and the arts, allowing the complex story of the hay meadow to be told by the people whose lives are deeply entangled with it. The book showcases more than thirty first-person accounts that touch on subjects ranging from grassland restoration, hedge-laying, handcrafts, and archaeology. Beautifully illustrated with nearly three hundred photographs specially taken for the book by Jim Holden, and featuring a new foreword from His Royal Highness Prince Charles, Meadow is not only an insightful guide to the botanical and animal life of the classic British hay meadow but also a long-overdue celebration of the people behind these enigmatic and vanishing grasslands.
 

228 pages | 270 color plates | 8 1/2 x 10 | © 2022

Biological Sciences: Natural History


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Reviews

“This delightfully colorful book on meadows is not simply literary ‘wallpaper’. . , Each chapter is written by an expert in their field and the book provides an array of lovely personal reflections from artists, scientists, crafts people, and land managers. . . Meadow quite simply inspires and informs.”

The Garden

"[Meadow] explains that with knowledge and care, people have the potential to help these biodiversity hotspots return."

Waitrose Magazine

"Parkinson’s contributors make a powerful case for the wise implementation of grazing strategies and wild hay-making to restore Britain’s meadows to their former glory."

Natural History

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Introduction 10
Variety 18
Restore 60
Character 110
Inspire 164
Value 194
Index 224
Acknowledgements 228

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