The Bookery: A Summer Celebration of Nature Writing

About this event

7.15pm–9pm This July, The Bookery comes to Symondsbury Estate for a special evening celebrating landscape, wildlife and the written word. Hosted in The Old Pottery, this summer edition brings together three acclaimed writers whose work explores our relationship with the natural world, offering an evening of readings, conversation and audience discussion. Meet the Authors Brian Jackman: Wild About Dorset Veteran travel writer, passionate conservationist, leading safari specialist and retired Sunday Times journalist, 91-year-old Brian will present a retrospective on his book, Wild About Dorset. A compendium of the monthly columns he wrote for his local community magazine, the book is a “love letter” to the wildlife and wild places in West Dorset’s Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, where he has lived for fifty years; the only place in the British Isles, he says, that reminds him of the lost countryside of his youth. Brian’s latest book, Lion Song: A Portrait of Wild Africa, was published in March this year. Sarah Hudston: The Lady of Exmoor Dorset-based journalist, editor, activist and regular contributor to The Guardian‘s Country Diary, Sarah Hudston, describes herself as an eco-feminist writer, telling “stories that need to be told”. At the Bookery in July she will introduce her forthcoming book (published in November 2026) on the life and work of Hope Bourne, who lived for many years in a dilapidated off-grid caravan in a remote part of Exmoor.