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Upon A White Horse: A Financial Times Best Book of 2025 and Radio 4 Book of the Week
Peter Ross
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*A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK, FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOKS OF 2025, SCOTSMAN BOOKS OF 2025, COUNTRY LIFE BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2025*
'Packed with anecdote and colour, it's a surprisingly touching portrait of the countries' - Financial Times, Best Books of 2025
'An insightful and engaging reflection on the appeal of the ancient' - The Times'I'm a card-carrying admirer of Peter Ross' - Robert Macfarlane
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?
Author of the bestseller Steeple Chasing and prize-winning A Tomb With A View, Peter Ross journeys from midwinter at Stonehenge to midsummer at Sycamore Gap. Along the way he encounters bog bodies in Dublin, a wooden goddess in Edinburgh and a chalk giant in Dorset. He asks 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.
'Ross scores highly on his intuitive interpretations of places and his non-judgemental observations of human nature; he is empathetic, but can stand back' - Country Life
'Ross is a wonderfully evocative writer, deftly capturing a sense of place and history, while bringing a deep humanity to his subject' - Guardian
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Praise for Upon A White Horse: A Financial Times Best Book of 2025 and Radio 4 Book of the Week
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This fascinating paean to the ancient monuments of the UK is an evocatively lyrical work . . . Ross writes with reverence as well as humour, and there's a pilgrim quality to his travels. The pace of these tributes is gentle, befitting the enduring presence of these mysterious sites in the modern world - The FieldRoss scores highly on his intuitive interpretations of places and his non-judgemental observations of human nature; he is empathetic, but can stand back - Country LifeRoss is always lucid, almost reverent, about the whole process of archaeological discovery - Books from ScotlandRoss's last two books, Steeple Chasing and A Tomb With A View, were outstanding, and Upon A White Horse lives up to that excellence, with his pilgrimage to prehistoric sites and places of ancient enchantment a meandering journey on which it is a privilege to be able to accompany him - Scottish FieldIn unravelling the histories of these sites and the motivations of those who care for them, [Ross] finds that they still have a role to play - even in our modern world - Wanderlust, Stanfords' top winter travel readsA beautifully written book of traces and absences . . . One of the characteristics that makes Peter Ross a fine journalist is his capacity to be unobtrusive. He does not showboat nor monopolise the story, letting others speak instead . . . The most autobiographical glances and snatches are the most moving and revealing of the book - The ScotsmanFascinating . . . [Ross] has a poetic, meditative style, with a sharp eye for detail and a keen sense of humour . . . As well as bringing the sites and monuments vividly to life, he delves into issues of archaeology, folklore, faith and identity, while weaving in elements of personal memoir - GeographicalFascinating - The Herald
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