This book will give great pleasure to those who turn its pages. The words, mostly by Nick Acheson, also by Tim Baldwin and Harriet Mead, are very good and there are just enough of them, but not too many, to enhance one’s knowledge of the site and understanding of the artwork. The drawings, paintings, woodcuts etc are drop-dead gorgeous.
This work is a project of the Society of Wildlife Artists and celebrates the restoration of Norfolk farmland to Norfolk heathland. Many artists visited during the year-long residency and this book brings together their perspectives.
I cannot mention the artists’ names because there are, I think, 32 of them, and I cannot tell you my favourites because it would be close to being a 32-person tie for favourite. There are familiar and well-known artists’ work and also those of quite a few who were not known to me.
Harriet Mead led the project.
This will be one of my shortlisted titles for this blog’s Book of the Year for 2026.
I’ve praised the art and the text, and I should mention the design of the book too, but I want to end by saying that the Foreword by Olly Birkbeck was a brilliant introduction to the book. When you read it I hope you’ll agree. Mr Birkbeck inherited the land which has been restored and he explains in rather few well-chosen words why he took this course of action and what it has meant to him as he continues farming adjacent to the heath. I was moved.
The cover? It’s gorgeous. 10/10.
This Healing Heath: the SWLA at Massingham Heath by the SWLA is published by and is available from the SWLA.