by Sarah Hosking 

‘Round the Square and Up the Tower: Clifford Chambers, Warwickshire’ is an unusual and inventive look at the oldest part of a small village in south Warwickshire. Copiously illustrated, it includes commissioned chapters by the best writers in their field on the River Stour, the church and the buildings around the Square (which was basically a farmyard) and the Tudor poet, Michael Drayton who is for ever associated with the place but who was one of the poets of the time who appears not to have been a friend of Shakespeare. Stylish and witty, this book was voted ‘Book of the Year’ by the novelist, Salley Vickers in the Church Times in December 2013 and has been hailed by Ronald Blyth as ‘the most wonderful village history.......tying in the ancient community with national history in a scholarly way....an example of how such books should be written’.