Bøker av Steve Wallis

Exmoor is one of southern England's few remaining wild landscapes. In this area there are a scattering of attractive villages and the occasional town. Exmoor's importance to the nation is recognised in its protected status as a National Park, and it covers much of western Somerset and an adjacent area of Devon. This book looks at a selection of those villages, including historic Dunster, Selworthy, and the popular Porlock. Dulverton, Lynton and Lynmouth also feature. Views of many of the iconic beauty spots of the coast and inland are also included, such as the Valley of Rocks and those of Lorna Doone country. A selection of landscape views show that even in such an unspoilt area, the countryside is a place that is continually changing. Throughout this book you may be surprised not only by the changes that have taken place, but also by what has remained the same.

Bridport is a thriving market town in western Dorset. It lies a short distance inland of a spectacular section of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, and is surrounded by some equally attractive hilly countryside. Although the town originated in Saxon times, it expanded a great deal in the Middle Ages, partly due to the success of the local rope industry. Many of its products were used in the local fishing and shipbuilding industries, which were concentrated around Bridport Harbour. At one time, Bridport Harbour was the second largest producer of ships in the country. In an early example of marketing, when the railway reached here in the 1880s, its name was changed to West Bay in the hope that this would sound more attractive to tourists. Comprising a magnificent range of images old and new, this book explores the historical development of this fascinating town and its attractive surrounding area.

Thomas Hardy celebrated the glorious county of Dorset through his writings. Today our vision of Dorset is very much that fixed by Hardy in novels ranging from Far From the Madding Crowd and The Mayor of Casterbridge to Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. Hurriedly produced in instalments for magazines, they were then reworked by Hardy with care and finesse, and turned into world classics. Steve Wallis revisits the Dorset heartland of Hardy's Wessex, and illustrates the changes that have taken place using old and new images. He charts Thomas Hardy's life and work through the places he knew and the locations he immortalised, from his birthplace at Stinsford, to his old age at Max Gate, with Swanage, Sturminster Newton, Weymouth and Wimborne in between. Join the author on this unique and nostalgic tour through time.