The Motor Routes of England: Western Section

In 1909, the automobile was still a marvel, and English country roads remained uncharted territory for most drivers. Gordon Home and his assistant Charles H. Ashdown set out to change that, meticulously charting western England's most scenic motoring routes at a time when a good map could mean the difference between a pleasant afternoon and being stranded overnight in some muddy lane. This isn't merely a guidebook to pubs and cathedrals; it's a portal into a vanished world where travelers carried tins of petrol alongside their sandwiches, where every hillcrest offered a view unseen by previous generations of tourists, and where the freedom of the open road was genuinely new. From the ancient byways of the West Country to the dramatic Welsh borders, Home documents what early motorists found worth stopping for: the silhouette of a medieval castle at sunset, a village unchanged for centuries, the particular quality of light across the Cotswolds. The routes remain valid today, but the experience of following them has transformed utterly. For anyone drawn to vintage travel, automotive history, or the English landscape, this book offers something increasingly rare: the chance to see familiar ground through fresh eyes, as if discovering it for the first time.