The Last Broomsquire by Martin Hesp

Description

The Last Broomsquire takes the very real events surrounding the 18th century story about the hanging of John Walford and weaves it into a multidimensional Quantock novel – a tale of passion, brutality, adventure and romance.

Here we meet not only the broom squire, but the romantic poets Coleridge and Wordsworth, the enlightened tanner Tom Poole, and the eccentric landowner Andrew Crosse, whose electrical experiments inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein.

The author skilfully brings the haunting Quantock landscape alive, creating a tapestry embellished with beautiful women, family feuds and sudden death, as well as mud horse fishermen, shady smugglers, laudanum, cider and excise men. Rarely has a single location played host to such a string of remarkable events.

Martin Hesp is a wel kn0wn journalist and broadcaster who grew up in the shadow of the Quantocks.