Travel writing, adventure, & guide books
Reviews
A fascinating and charming reverie on the impermanence of our Island’s islands
Tony Robinson, star of Blackadder and Time Team
There is real poise and poetry in [Crofton's] writing, sentences that lift the reader's spirit like the extraordinary power of the birds
Stornoway Gazette
In 2014 Ian Crofton followed England’s northern frontier with Scotland. Now he turns to the country's other edges, specifically to those parts that have become detached – including Lindisfarne and the Isle of Wight, Eel Pie Island and the Isles of Scilly
Telegraph
a fascinating study about what it means to exist on the fringes
Coast Magazine, Book of the Month
A really engaging…armchair-travel read
BBC Countryfile Magazine
A companionable and oddly compulsive book... Ian Crofton throws himself into this eclectic collection of islands with gusto, finding fascinating tales to share even from the most benighted urban backwaters.
The Scottish Mountaineer
About the Book
One of the Daily Telegraph's 20 Books Perfect for Travel
Scotland has its rugged Hebrides; Ireland its cliff-girt Arans; Wales its Island of Twenty Thousand Saints. And what has England got? The isles of Canvey, Sheppey, Wight and Dogs, Mersea, Brownsea, Foulness and Rat. But there are also wilder, rockier places – Lundy, the Scillies, the Farnes.
These islands and their inhabitants not only cast varied lights on the mainland, they also possess their own peculiar stories, from the Barbary slavers who once occupied Lundy, to the ex-major who seized a wartime fort in the North Sea and declared himself Prince of Sealand.
Ian Crofton embarks on a personal odyssey to a number of the islands encircling England, exploring how some were places of refuge or holiness, while others have been turned into personal fiefdoms by their owners, or become locations for prisons, rubbish dumps and military installations. He also describes the varied ways in which England's islands have been formed, and how they are constantly changing, so making a mockery of human claims to sovereignty.
The Author
Ian Crofton
Ian Crofton's books exploring the interplay of landscape, nature and history include Walking the Border: A Journey between Scotland and England, rated by both The Guardian and Trail magazine as 'excellent'. His Fringed with Mud and Pearls: An English Island Odyssey was described by the BBC’s Countryfile as 'really engaging', and by Coast magazine as 'a fascinating study about what it means to exist on the fringes'; it was selected by the Telegraph as one of their top twenty travel books of 2021. Upland: A Journey Through Time and the Hills was published in May 2025.
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