Richard Jefferies: Swindon's Pioneering Nature Writer

Childhood at Coate

Jefferies grew up on a small Wiltshire farm. His childhood – rambling, watching, waiting in the fields and by the water – provided the background for all his major fiction. He was particularly fond of Coate Water, the 19th-century reservoir and park near Swindon. His biographer has described the landscape around Coate as "the most minutely observed and poetically evoked landscape in English literature." Every rustle of grass, every flight of a bird, every change of light finds its way into his essays. Coate Farm, his birthplace, is now the Richard Jefferies House and Museum – a place to connect with the writer and the landscape he loved.

Major works

Jefferies wrote essays, novels, and works of natural history. The Amateur Poacher (1879) and Round About a Great Estate (1880) capture the detail of rural life and the natural world. Bevis (1882), a children's classic, draws on his memories of Coate Farm and the adventures of boyhood – building rafts, exploring the lake, living wild in the woods. The Story of My Heart (1883) is a spiritual autobiography, a meditation on nature and the inner life. After London (1885) is an early work of science fiction – a vision of a future Britain after environmental collapse, where nature has reclaimed the land. It anticipates concerns that would only become mainstream a century later.

Literary legacy and environmentalism

Jefferies influenced major writers including D.H. Lawrence, and his techniques anticipate those later used by Virginia Woolf. He is increasingly recognised as a foundational figure in British environmental thought – someone who wrote with precision and passion about the natural world at a time when industry and urban growth were transforming it. The Guardian has argued that his legacy has sometimes been overlooked in planning decisions affecting the Swindon landscape – a reminder that the places he wrote about are still there, and still worth protecting.

Discovering Jefferies in Swindon

The Richard Jefferies House and Museum at Coate Farm offers a chance to step into the world that inspired him. Coate Water Country Park – now a popular venue for walks, wildlife, and family days out – was the "lake" of Jefferies' imagination. The BBC has featured the Richard Jefferies Walk, connecting sites associated with the author. For anyone interested in nature writing, local history, or simply the beauty of the Swindon countryside, Jefferies remains an essential voice – and a reminder that the landscape we enjoy today was once seen through his eyes.