Upon A White Horse

Journeys in Ancient Britain and Ireland

I’m delighted to reveal the cover of my new book, Upon A White Horse: Journeys in Ancient Britain and Ireland.

The book will be published by Headline on 11 September 2025 and is available for pre-order now, here.

I’m grateful to those of you who have been reading my Small Finds pieces on Substack. It has been a pleasure to share those with you. I hope that you will enjoy reading something by me at greater length. Let me tell you about the book.

The prehistoric sites of Britain and Ireland are places of wonder and wondering. Who made these structures? What did they mean to them? And what do they mean to us now?

Upon A White Horse explores those questions. It describes a journey from midwinter at Stonehenge to midsummer at Sycamore Gap. Along the way I encounter bog bodies in Dublin, a wooden goddess in Edinburgh and a chalk giant in Dorset. I ask what it is like to live within the great stone circle at Avebury, what rituals occurred in an Anglesey tomb and what draws volunteers to care for the Uffington White Horse.

These objects and structures speak of the long human story. They offer the comfort of recognition and the pleasure of mystery. There is something about ancient places that fills a hollow in our souls.

Upon A White Horse is a celebration of landscape and people – and all that is beautiful, strange and old.

The beautiful cover is by Edward Bettison, who designed the jackets for my previous books A Tomb With A View and Steeple Chasing. The little fox from the first book has slunk through the graveyard, along the church path and is now cresting a hill on its way to see the great chalk horse.

My thanks to everyone at Headline who has worked on the cover and to everyone who reads my work. I hope that you will take pleasure in the way the book looks and, come September, the stories that lie within.

Again, Upon A White Horse is available for pre-order, here.