On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging (Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2022 for Nature Writing - Highly Commended)

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The legacy of Newbury and the Greenham Common protests preceding it remain controversial, awkward reminders that when Berkshire’s countryside was threatened, it was locals, oddballs and anarchists who answered the call rather than its titled custodians – many of whom supported the bypass’s construction. Belonging, Chester believes, is earned through love and engagement, not inherited by deed.

Part nature writing, part memoir, On Gallows Down is an essential, unforgettable read for fans of Helen Macdonald, Melissa Harrison and Isabella Tree. From the girl catching the eye of the “peace women” of Greenham Common to the young woman protesting the loss of ancient and beloved trees, and as a mother raising a family in a farm cottage in the shadow of grand, country estates, this is the story of how Nicola Chester came to write – as a means of protest. The story of how she discovered the rich seam of resistance that runs through her village of Newbury and its people – from the English Civil War to the Swing Riots and the battle against the Newbury Bypass. And the story of the hope she finds in the rewilding of Greenham Common after the military left, the stories told by the landscapes of Watership Down, the gallows perched high on Inkpen Beacon and Highclere Castle (the setting of Downtown Abbey). What do you do when you no longer recognise the place you grew up in? When it has been flayed and torn off the surface of the earth; burnt, excavated heaped up and built on with structures you struggle to make sense of. This feeling of grief and disorientation was new, distressing and seemed to permeate everything. Place was everything to me. I had been uprooted before but now, it seemed, the very place I stood upon was torn up by its roots.” Passionate and poetically compelling, Nicola Chester’s On Gallows Down is a rich and rewarding must-read for nature-lovers, and for readers who adored H is for Hawk. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

Content highlighting – users can choose to emphasize important elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only. The "Combe Gibbet" Race takes in Walbury Hill, Pilot Hill beyond it and Ladle Hill and the edge of Watership Down before entering Overton, the source of the River Test. We have never been on a holiday abroad, instead we would go walking through nature, through the fields, up the hill and explore the footpaths. It made sound a bit cliché, but when I think about my children, it is the hill that raised them.” Combe Gibbet is a gibbet at the top of Gallows Down, near the village of Combe, Hampshire. It stands on the footpath, at the boundary of parishes and counties, and is named after the village of Combe. Over the ridge is the Berkshire village and parish of Inkpen. It is built on top of a long barrow known as the Inkpen long barrow. The long barrow is 200 feet long and 70 feet wide. This is close to the massive hill fort on Walbury Hill.

Jonathan Stevenson is a forester and arborist living, working, and teaching sustainable woodland management in North Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion. Another move to Greenham felt like a body part was being removed, but she soon felt at home in the natural world again as she discovered what was new around there. But it was also a realisation that not everywhere was accessible. This once common ground had been seized for the use of the RAF and it became the home of the American Nuclear force. It was also the home of the peace camp full of women protesting about the presence of these weapons of mass destruction. In the same way, she became aware of the natural world, Chester realised that land and who owned it and was granted access was a political issue. The idea of ‘belonging’ can be deeply problematic of course, as it can be a way to exclude others. With that in mind, how do we belong to a place, a landscape, or anywhere? How do we belong to more than one place in the world? (Migratory birds might know several places in the world, intimately). Belonging for me is not about who owns land or whether you are from a place, generations deep (though of course, it can be) – it is how we engage with the place, seek it out, get to know it in our own way. It is about what it means to us, and how it becomes part of our story – and we, it. If we are in the place now, isn’t that the most important and radical thing? The gibbet was erected in 1676 for the purpose of gibbeting the bodies of George Broomham and Dorothy Newman and has only ever been used for them. The gibbet was placed in such a prominent location as a warning, to deter others from committing crimes. George and Dorothy, in an adulterous relationship, were hanged for murdering George's wife Martha, and their son Robert after they discovered them together on the downs. The lovers' crime was witnessed by Mad Thomas, who managed to convey what he had seen to the authorities.It is impossible to write with integrity about nature without protesting and resisting and waving a desperate red flag. It’s been an absolute privilege and pleasure to curate a response to the themes in my book, On Gallows Down, and I am thrilled to have some truly exciting, moving and thoughtful pieces by some truly wonderful writers that I admire very much, lined up for you.

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About the author

One element of belonging is an ethic of care. To belong in a place is to have a stake in its future. Chester not only has skin in this place, but her head and heart are also fully invested in her care for the corner of Berkshire she calls home. She recounts a life of protest against the destruction of the place she loves, beginning with the protests against nuclear weapons at Greenham Common in the 1980s, which she observed as a teenager, followed by taking part in protests against the building of the M3 route across Twyford Down, the Newbury bypass protests and ending with a protest against the destruction of a local woodland. Chester’s life has been shaped by fighting against the threat of environmental destruction. It changed everything for me. I learned to critique, not just literature but also film, art and other media, and really write; to see more than one side of a story, to see depths and make my own interpretations. I loved those years. They allowed me the freedom to dream and study and write,” she says. On leaving school, Chester wanted to study conservation, but this was a course for gamekeepers, and female gamekeepers were unheard of. P.S. My husband and I attended the book launch event for On Gallows Down in Hungerford on Saturday evening. Nicola was interviewed by Claire Fuller, whose Women’s Prize-shortlisted novel Unsettled Ground is set in a fictional version of the village where Nicola lives.