Reading the Land 2026

In conversation:

Paul Lamb (Of Thorn & Briar) and Ben Short (Burn)

A Return to the Hedgerows: what the Old Ways look like in modern times

​As the world around us gets ever louder, busier and more demanding there is a gentle stirring elsewhere. More people are yearning for something slower, quieter, simpler. A calling back to nature. It seems the Old Ways are speaking to us. But, what exactly does that look like in modern times, and why is it more important now than ever to embrace ancient traditions and heritage skills?

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Hedgelayer, Paul Lamb, and charcoal burner, Ben Short will share stories from the hedgerows and the woods, anecdotes from a life lived in tune with nature, whilst exploring what it means to be guardians of the land through practical skill. Travelling the South West and Wales in a lovingly restored wagon, Paul is passionate about preserving both our hedgerows and the crafts that maintain their roles as wildlife corridors and ecological lynchpins of the landscape. Deep in the West Dorset woods, Ben works the Old Ways to create sustainable woodland management practices and feeling his way back to a slower, more thoughtful, more connected way of living.

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Paul and Ben will come together to offer insight into what the Old Ways can offer us, why now people seem to be turning to them for answers, and what it looks like to live them practically on a day-to-day basis.​

Chaired by Jeni Bell

In conversation:

Lisa Schneidau (Woodland / River / Botanical Folk Tales) and Martin Maudsley (Telling the Seasons)​

​Re-storying the landscape​

For thousands of years people have explored and expressed their relationship with nature and the land through stories, drawing on a storehouse of wisdom, connections and meaning.
Lisa Schneidau and Martin Maudsley, both professional storytellers and published authors, come together to discuss what folktales, passed down through word-of-mouth, can offer us now in the digital age, with nature under threat and an increasing longing for connection with place.
As the pace of life runs ever faster, can the old tales anchor us, continue to inform our perceptions of the natural word, and renew our relationship to the land and cycles of the seasons?
Lisa Schneidau is a storyteller, folklorist and ecologist who seeks out stories of the land and the nature around us. Lisa works with old tales and new imaginings through performance, schools and community projects across Britain and beyond. Her books include ‘Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland’, Woodland Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland’ and ‘English Folk Tales of Coast and Sea,’ with a new book ‘Tree Folk’ to be published in late 2026.

Martin Maudsley’s work as a storyteller draws on the rich tapestry of British folklore and folktales, refined through site-specific performances. His book ‘Telling the Seasons’ explores the diverse and distinctive ways in which we connect to the natural world through stories, customs and celebrations. He is particularly passionate about how traditional tales, shared through contemporary events, continue to hold meaning and help us to ‘re-story the landscape’.

Chaired by Angela McAllister

Michael J. Warren (The Cuckoo's Lea)

The Cuckoo's Lea is about the power and allure of place in our lives, now and in the long past, as shaped and evoked by birds. Michael J. Warren goes in search of the many birds hidden in English place-names, names which take us back to a medieval world when the towns and villages in which we still live today were first coming into being. Their names are not only ancient, but reveal the intimate and local relationships that people once had with their homes and environments – relationships in which birds played a vital role. 

Introduced by Catherine Simmonds

Guy Shrubsole (The Lie of the Land)

The lie of the land: that Britain’s landowners care for the countryside. Our landowning elite are paid billions of taxpayer pounds to be good stewards. But these same landowners have carelessly trampled over our best-loved landscapes, leaving the rivers polluted, fenlands drained, and moorlands burned.

Guy Shrubsole has travelled across Britain to expose the lie and meet the communities fighting back to restore our lost landscapes. This is a bold, shared vision for our nation’s wild places, and how we can treat them with the awe and care they deserve. 

Introduced by Karen Brazier

Sponsored by Darwin Ecology

Lucy Lapwing (Love is a Toad) 

Nature makes us feel things. It sparks awe, curiosity and a sense of beauty and community. But as wildlife around us declines and disappears, murkier feelings rise up: guilt, detachment and fear for nature's plight. For many years, Lucy Lapwing wrestled with these tangled emotions. So, in an attempt to make sense of this dance between joy and grief, she decided to go on a journey. In Love Is a Toad, Lucy traverses meadows, bogs and hedgerows with her fellow nature enthusiasts, where she digs down into our relationship with the natural world.

Over the course of a year, she meets bucketfuls of wildlife – Blackbird and Oak, slugs and puffballs, waterlilies, Dung Beetles and toads – as she roams across the UK. From a river swim to wanders through woodlands, with every journey, Lucy explores how nature makes us feel, from wild grief and anger through to soaring joy and indefatigable hope. At once a celebration and an invitation to reflect, Love Is a Toad prods and pokes at our connection to the natural world, exploring its complexity in all its muddiness, messiness and wonder. ​

Introduced by Brigit Strawbridge-Howard