The Medicine Tree

Caught by the River · Oct 28, 2026

A rousing call to reach for the pitchforks, Nick Hayes’ ‘The Medicine Tree’ — our October Book of the Month – shows that community and land culture grow and thrive wherever they are allowed to, writes Abi Andrews.

In the verdant home counties, among chequered fields and kite-flecked skies, is an Oxfordshire estate that appears much like any other — an arcadian emblem of Englishness; a signifier of assumptive hereditary power. But something radical has taken root. Since the 1970s, the Lord of the manor has been practicising organic farming on some of the estates’ lands, has…