Image: Chalk Paths by Eric Ravilious, 1935. This post is by Guy Shrubsole.

‘The Ghosts of Chalk Country’ is a forthcoming book by Guy Shrubsole, to be published by William Collins in 2027.

This website is my accompanying project to uncover the ghosts of chalk downland. Chalk grassland is one of England’s richest and most biodiverse habitats, the poverty of its soils giving rise to a wealth of wildflowers. For many people, our chalk cliffs and downs are the quintessence of England.

Yet during a few short decades in the 20th century, we smashed this landscape to pieces. The sweet, springy turf of the downs was ploughed up, subjected to industrialised agriculture, impoverished through ‘improvement’. Vast swathes of our “bow-headed, whale-backed” downs were replaced by a sea of arable monocultures. Precious islands of the original chalk grassland still survive, but they are fragments of what we once had.

The destruction of our chalk downland is a tragedy made worse by how precisely we can chart its loss. We trashed our chalk grasslands so recently, we can track their decline using old film footage, postcards and aerial photographs. It was one of the first ecological disasters to be caught on camera.

This website is a request for your help to piece together the former chalk downland of England – and in doing so, help breathe life into efforts to restore it. Over successive blog posts, I’ll give examples of the sorts of evidence I’m searching for – from old photos and maps to botanists’ accounts. If you can help, please get in touch with me via ghostsofchalkcountry [at] gmail.com

Guy Shrubsole is an environmental campaigner and author of The Lie of the Land (2024), The Lost Rainforests of Britain (2022) – both of which have won the prestigious Wainwright Prize for conservation writing – and Who Owns England? (2019). He has worked for a wide range of organisations, from Friends of the Earth and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and is the co-founder of the Right to Roam campaign.