The boy that sings on Duncton Hill

IN 1901, Hilaire Belloc, an ardent Catholic, embarked on a lengthy pilgrimage of faith. Starting near Nancy in southern France, he trekked across the Swiss Alps and headed down into central Italy, through Tuscany and on to the Holy City. He called his account of the journey (1902) and said it was ‘the only book I wrote for love’. It certainly became among the best loved—and most widely read—of his books. Yet it’s hard to read his writing on his beloved county of Sussex, where he lived for much of his life, and not detect great warmth and affection for his adopted county.