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Image of a book cover of an illustrated pastoral landscape featuring rolling green hills. White geoglyphs of a horse and a man are etched on the hillsides, and there are scattered ancient stones in the foreground. A pale blue and pink sky stretches above. The title “UPON A WHITE HORSE” is printed in large orange uppercase letters near the top of the image. Beneath it, the subtitle “Journeys in Ancient Britain and Ireland” is in dark blue. At the bottom, the author’s name “Peter Ross” appears in white text.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

PUBLISHER: Headline

ISBN: 9781035414079

RRP: £10.99

PAGES: 368

PUBLICATION DATE:
April 23, 2026

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Upon a White Horse

By Peter Ross

A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK, FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOKS OF 2025, SCOTSMAN BOOKS OF 2025, COUNTRY LIFE BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2025

The prehistoric sites of Britain and Ireland are places of wonder and wondering. Who made these structures? What did they mean to them? And what do they mean to us now?

Author of the bestseller Steeple Chasing and prize-winning A Tomb With A View, Peter Ross journeys from midwinter at Stonehenge to midsummer at Sycamore Gap. Along the way he encounters bog bodies in Dublin, a wooden goddess in Edinburgh and a chalk giant in Dorset. He asks what it is like to live within the great stone circle at Avebury, what rituals occurred in an Anglesey tomb and what draws volunteers to care for the Uffington White Horse.

These objects and structures speak of the long human story. They offer the comfort of recognition and the pleasure of mystery. There is something about ancient places that fills a hollow in our souls.

Upon A White Horse is a celebration of landscape and people – and all that is beautiful, strange and old.

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Peter Ross (Author)

Peter Ross is an Orwell journalism fellow. His writing has appeared in national newspapers and magazines in the UK and US. He won the non-fiction prize at Scotland’s National Book Awards with A Tomb With A View: The Stories & Glories of Graveyards, and his next book, Steeple Chasing, was a Sunday Times bestseller and was selected as Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month. He is also author of the collections Daunderlust and The Passion Of Harry Bingo. He lives in Glasgow.