Hunters of Longtree
A Cotswold Tale
by David Walker
Written in the great and much loved tradition of Gilbert White, W H Hudson and Henry Williamson, Hunters of Longtree can best be described as a real-life drama of survival in the natural world.
Set against the tranquil backdrop of the South Cotswolds at the dawn of the 1950s, the narrative delves into the lives of nature's adept hunters—stoats, weasels, foxes, badgers, otters, bats, and birds of prey—offering a rare glimpse into their existence before the silent shadows of change swept across their world.
Buy the book on Amazon
“I was very pleased - and tantalised - to read of and from your Hunters of Longtree. It reminded me, in the best possible way, of Henry Williamson, of course about whom I wrote in the first of my Guardian essays and with whom it seems to me you share a ferality, and an intensity of method.”
— Dr. Robert Macfarlane, Nature Writer and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University
“Walker constructs a story satisfying to a wide range of readers, from local historians, through lovers of the rural scene past and present, to specialist carnivore biologists like myself. That is because he writes out of deep love for and personal intimacy with the area, supplemented both by meticulous research into local history, and also by experience and research in the ecology of carnivores.”
— Dr. Carolyn King, D. Phil, F. R. S (NZ), Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Waikato
“This fascinating account of the natural history of Longtree in the Parish of Woodchester, just south of Stroud in Gloucestershire is in the great and much loved tradition of Gilbert White, W.H. Hudson, Richard Jefferies and Henry Williamson. David Walker has been for many years a frequent visitor and close observer of this south Cotswold countryside and has a deep interest in its past history, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and medieval.”
— Prof. Owen Wade CBE MD FRCP, former Dean of the Medical Faculty and Vice-Principal of Birmingham University