MEDICINE TREE

A stunning deeply felt exploration of the struggle between ownership and belonging in England by the best selling author of The Book of Trespass Early one September Nick Hayes brought his houseboat up the Thames into rural Oxfordshire mooring opposite a strange tree that towered over the surrounding meadowland The tree he would discover was a hybrid of the eastern cottonwood brought back from colonial Canada The land was the Hardwick estate whose apparently timeless tranquillity like so much of the English countryside masks a darker history Yet Hardwick also tells another quite different story Over the following months Hayes learns that its rolling hills and fertile valleys are on the front lines of a battle between ownership and belonging Through a golden autumn and the frosts and floods of winter and early spring Hayes explores an estate that acknowledging the colonial origins of its wealth has become a haven for those who are both unable and unwilling to be part of a countryside geared towards profit at any cost Living and working among this extraordinary community of farmers and craftspeople Hayes contemplates what we have lost in England as our sense of kinship with the land and the deep knowledge that arose from it was destroyed Yet