Walking the Great North Line: From Stonehenge to Lindisfarne to Discover the Mysteries of Our Ancient Past

by Robert Twigger

Overview

Robert Twigger, poet and travel author, was in search of a new way up England when he stumbled across the Great North Line. From Christchurch on the South Coast to Old Sarum to Stonehenge, to Avebury, to Notgrove barrow, to Meon Hill in the midlands, to Thor's Cave, to Arbor Low stone circle, to Mam Tor, to Ilkley in Yorkshire and its three stone circles and the Swastika Stone, to several forts and camps in Northumberland to Lindisfarne (plus about thirty more sites en route). A single dead straight line following 1 degree 50 West up Britain. No other north-south straight line goes through so many ancient sites of such significance.

Was it just a suggestive coincidence or were they built intentionally? Twigger walks the line, which takes him through Birmingham, Halifax and Consett as well as Salisbury Plain, the Peak district, and the Yorkshire moors. With a planning schedule that focused more on reading about shamanism and beat poetry than hardening his feet up, he sets off ever hopeful. He wild-camps along the way, living like a homeless bum, with a heart that starts stifled but ends up soaring with the beauty of life. He sleeps in a prehistoric cave, falls into a river, crosses a 'suicide viaduct' and gets told off by a farmer's wife for trespassing; but in this simple life he finds woven gold. He walks with others and he walks alone, ever alert to the incongruities of the edgelands he is journeying through.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474609067
Publisher:	Orion Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/10/2021
Pages:	356
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

Robert Twigger is a true adventurer who always comes up with something surprising, entertaining and unique. He led the expedition that was the first to cross the Great Sand Sea of the Egyptian Sahara solely on foot, and another that was the first to cross Western Canada in a birchbark canoe since 1793. He is the author of eight previous books, including Red Nile, White Mountain and the highly acclaimed Angry White Pyjamas, which won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award and a Somerset Maugham Award.

Table of Contents

1 False Starts and Real Starts 1

2 Fire and Water 11

3 To the Mizmaze and a Circle of Yews 21

4 Meteorites and Altars 33

5 Stonedhenge 43

6 Plain Talk 51

7 A Poetical Duck and Witches 63

8 On From Adam's Grave and Avebury 75

9 A Royal Welcome 89

10 Taking the Waters 95

11 The Price of Property 105

12 Betty's Grave 111

13 Old Boots and Modern Shamans 117

14 Drinking to the Ancestors 123

15 Meon Hill and Burnt Norton 129

16 Head Smashed in Town 137

17 Footing it through Brum 145

18 Superheater 151

19 Down the Tunnel 157

20 Caveman 165

21 Arbor Low and Five Wells 171

22 Bull Burials and the Mother 181

23 Edale Blues 187

24 The Moors 195

25 Beat Poets and the Bingley Byron 205

26 Land of Stones 219

27 Leaving Harrogate 227

28 Shaft 237

29 River Crossings 241

30 Staindrop and Onwards 253

31 Warrior Poet Island 261

32 Wisdom of the Elders 267

33 Cairns, Caves and Trees 271

34 Lindisfarne 283

Notes 291

Acknowledgements 293

Index 295

Editorial Reviews

Robert Twigger's travelogues have always had a wonderful globetrotting sense of adventure. Here, he attempts something closer to home; walking the "line" that connects Stonehenge and Lindisfarne and other ancient landmarks... An extended ramble, literally, which becomes a consideration of life, family and the nature of beauty—Ben East, THE OBSERVER

There are some non-fiction books which are held together by the sheer force of the author's personality alone. Robert Twigger's new volume is one such. Its spine, both literally and metaphorically, is a walk from Christchurch in Dorset to the island of Lindisfarne in Northumberland, a more or less straight line at 1 degree 50 west along the major watershed of English rivers ... His mind goes everywhere, but a certain levity and self-deprecating humour is marbled throughout it. Self-deprecation seems quintessentially English and somehow a Zen Buddhist loss of self at one and the same time here. I doubt there will be published a book so manic and pensive, so cheerful, so able to polish your eyes to see things anew (why are most houses built around right angles rather than circles?)—THE SCOTSMAN, Stuart Kelly

A fascinating meditation on ancient wisdom wrapped inside an adventure across modern Britain, this marvellously entertaining book offers a challenge to travel writing and a casket of treasures to readers—Nick Jubber, author of 'Epic Continent'

Twigger is an errant knight, who uncovers a hidden sense of England on his walk along this mystical route. A masterful conjuror of images and ideas, he can describe a blistered toe with the same enthusiasm he brings to the wistful call of the cuckoo. He turns his bright gaze on all manner of shamanic shapes and shifting ghosts in the land and reveals much about his own innermost thoughts on writing and the journey through life itself. This is a rare book with much wisdom spun around a seemingly well known set of places—Tim Ecott, author of 'The Land of Maybe: A Faroe Islands Year'

Robert Twigger is not so much a travel writer as a thrill-seeking philosopher—ESQUIRE

Rob Twigger is the perfect guide to the Great North Line. He is a vagabond seer in the tradition of Alfred Watkins: connecting the dots, glimpsing the past, anticipating the future. I loved it—Jon Day, author of 'Homing'

A bona fide media daredevil with brains and balls beyond the norm—DAILY TELEGRAPH

Twigger reminds us that the adventurous spirit of the British explorer is alive and well, and Voyageur is a fine addition to the genre—GUARDIAN

Twigger has found a narrative voice all too rare in contemporary travel writing: clear-eyed, unaffected, deadpan, slyly witty and unobtrusively erudite—MAIL ON SUNDAY

From the Publisher