Down Burrow Lane

Hardcover / ISBN-13: 9781399760089

Price: £20

ON SALE: 17th September 2026

Genre: Agriculture & Farming / Farm & Working Animals / Memoirs / Natural History

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‘One day can change a whole life – whether you are standing by a river looking at a heron, or watching a buzzard soaring over a hillside, or learning about friendship away from home for the first time.’

Fifty years ago, Michael and Clare Morpurgo packed their young family into a car in London and set off for a remote farm in rural Devon, down a narrow track called Burrow Lane.

It was on this magical farm that Michael, then a young schoolteacher, became a writer. Over the years, it would inspire many of his best-loved books, including War Horse and Private Peaceful.

Here, Michael and Clare raised their family – and, in many ways, grew up themselves. They also welcomed more than 100,000 children from towns and cities to experience life in the countryside through their charity, Farms for City Children.

This is the remarkable love story of Michael and Clare, and an account of the joys and hardships of life on the farm across five decades: a journey through the seasons and years that shaped the land around them, and the lives of the children forever changed by their time there.