IanVisits, the extremely popular London website, has just given the new edition of Paul Wood’s London’s Street Trees a long and admiring review, recommending it as a guide to ‘give you the background knowledge that there’s an interesting tree to seek out when wandering around an area’. Excellent timing, coming as Paul prepares for his sold-out talk on the book at Stanfords in Covent Garden tonight.
Croydonopolis author Will Noble has feature spread in the Telegraph
The Telegraph for 28 August featured a superb spread by Will Noble, whose Croydonopolis is published on 5 September, on why everything you think you know about Croydon is wrong.
Safe Haven and Hackney Council plant the first lemon tree in a London street
Among the planting party, Marcello of the Tree Musketeers is far left, next to him Hackney assistant tree officer Raffe Ross-Pearce, far right former Hackney councillor Vincent Stops, who over 20 years championed the borough’s street planting programme, in the foreground Hackney tree officer Marc Sanders, and behind him London’s Street Trees author Paul Wood.
To commemorate the critical and sales success of London’s Street Trees, Safe Haven’s Publisher, Graham Coster, decided to increase the already remarkable diversity of trees on the capital’s streets by contributing yet one more exotic species: a lemon tree. In consultation with the then chief arboricultural officer of Hackney Council, Rupert Bentley Walls, whose tree-planting initiative had seen the borough transformed into an amazing urban arboretum, a suitable specimen was duly purchased. And then the Covid pandemic intervened. Over two years went by with the lemon tree never leaving Italy. Belatedly, however, it has made it to the UK, and an ideally sheltered, south-facing, pedestrianised street in Shoreditch. Its planting was toasted by the participants with limoncello.
Graham Coster writes for County Cricket Matters
The latest issue of County Cricket Matters, published for the start of the 2024 season, includes a piece by The Nature of Cricket author and Safe Haven publisher Graham Coster on ‘Cricket at Northampton’.
Tessa Boase meets Jay Blades
While filming on Oxford Street recently for a Channel 5 documentary, Tessa Boase, author of London’s Lost Department Stores, met another of the programme’s participants, Jay Blades, of the BBC’s hugely popular Repair Shop.
The London Naturalist reviews Hillwalking London
The London Naturalist, the annual journal of the London Natural History Society, gave a long review to Hillwalking London. ‘I would recommend this as a useful guide and motivation for many walkers who want to explore further afield but stay within easy access of the city,’ wrote Angela Cunningham. ‘The views of the city skyline are spectacular in some of the walks and there are also vistas of a more rural nature. The ten walks are different enough to maintain interest and, for some, a goal to achieve all ten.’
Graham Coster writes for County Cricket Matters
In the latest edition of County Cricket Matters, the excellent quarterly edited and published by Annie Chave, Safe Haven publisher and author of The Nature of Cricket and Snow Stopped Play Graham Coster has a piece on the aesthetics of cricket called ‘Nowhere Near 39 Steps’.
BBC London TV news interviews Tessa Boase
As part of a three-part series about the future of Oxford Street, on 18 August BBC TV London news interviewed Tessa Boase, author of London’s Lost Department Stores, in the roof garden at the top of John Lewis’s flagship store on the street.
South East Walker reviews Hillwalking London
South East Walker, the magazine of the Ramblers for the South-East, and read by 26,000 keen walkers, has reviewed Hillwalking London.
IanVisits reviews Hillwalking London
The popular London website IanVisits has just published an extensive and judicious review of Hillwalking London, complimenting it on being ‘quite an easy book to follow, with helpful maps and tips about crossing roads, local eateries and bus services’, and noting that it could be ‘a handy book to pull out when visiting an area to see if there’s a local vantage point to keep an eye out for’.