Walk into the Dark Ages (Hardback)

Following the acclaimed Walk Into Prehistory, Walk Into the Dark Ages explores approximately 40 of Britain and Ireland's most important and impressive Dark Ages sites and monuments, providing a beautifully illustrated guidebook for the armchair traveller. It was during the Dark Ages that the four nations of the British Isles were founded. Saints were deified, kings were buried in rich burials and kingdoms protected themselves with massive boundaries. Walk Into the Dark Ages will shine a light into the period by enabling readers to explore the important sites which are testament to times which were turbulent and sometimes enigmatic, but also the locations of learning. The types of sites featured will include the Saxon shore forts built by the Romans to try to protect Britannia from Anglo-Saxon invasions, kingly boat burials, long-distance dykes, fortified burghs, Dark Age forts, early Christian monasteries, churches and carved crosses. Presented as individual walks, the routes will lead the reader back in time from the modern landscape to reconstruct in the mind's eye what the Dark Ages landscape would have looked like - and how these often quite places today would have been full of activity, noises and smells in the past.