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Hollow Places
- An Unusual History of Land and Legend
- Narrated by: Nicholas Camm
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
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Summary
‘Impossible to summarise and delightfully absorbing, Hadley’s book is comfortably the most unexpected history book of the year’ Sunday Times
A luminous journey through a thousand years of folklore and English history.
Hollow Places begins with a Hertfordshire dragon-slayer named Piers Shonks but soon draws us into the company of outlaws and stonemasons, antiquaries and champions. Full of wonder and always surprising, the story takes us to the margins of the Bayeux Tapestry where strange creatures gather, to ancient woodland where hollow trees hide secrets, and to the scribbled clues about folk heroes in eighteenth-century manuscripts. Hadley leads us back shivering to a church in Georgian England to sketch the dragon on a tomb, to stand atop its tower triangulating the Elizabethan countryside, and to confront the zealous Mr Dowsing and his thugs looting brasses and smashing masonry during the Civil War. Along the way, we discover how long bones will last in a crypt and where medieval stonemasons found inspiration.
The story of Piers Shonks is the survivor of an 800-year battle between storytellers and those who would mock or silence them. It stands for all those thousands of seemingly forgotten tales that used to belong to every village. It is an adventure into the past by a talented and original new writer, and a meditation on memory and belief that underlines the importance and the power of the folk legends we used to tell and why they still matter.
What listeners say about Hollow Places
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- Gerard Frith
- 07-06-22
wonderful
a wonderful journey. I thoroughly enjoyed this and started again as soon as it's finished.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Big Bird
- 13-01-21
Well researched and interesting
If you’re considering this book, you presumably have an interest in rural social history or you are a local resident of Hertfordshire! I really enjoyed the book and feel it worthy of the five stars as the authors enthusiasm, depth of research and detail is exceptional. There were times when it did become very deep in the detail, but I found the narration excellent as, unlike many audible books, it was good to have an English accent reading a quintessentially English book. I also found his expression and tone kept my interest in what was being said. The book is quite drawn out and repetitive in places, but overall I found it well written and very interesting - I just need to take myself on a pilgrimage to see it for myself when this lockdown ends!!
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2 people found this helpful
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- M. Ross
- 15-12-19
Well written but not keen on the narrator.
Good content but the narrator is too up and down . Sounds too strained. Shame
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4 people found this helpful