We could have walked the 100-mile South Downs Way route in five days, run it in three, or cycled it in two. Instead, we decided to take our time - 365 days to be exact - to walk every path and photograph every stunning landscape, building and peculiarity that caught our eye.

Month by month, we explored the Way, watched the seasons blend and change, the sun rise and set, and wildlife go about its business. We visited fetes and festivals, flower shows, castles and historic houses, and we uncovered the hidden stories of smugglers and highwaymen, sheep stealers and turncoats, mistresses and murderers.

This is a gift book, a story book, and a natural history book. It’s a book for photography lovers, for those who feel passionate about our country’s wild places, and those who love the tales, myths and traditions of Old England.

• The lost medieval villages of Exceat, Perching, Lomer and Bulmer, all abandoned after the Black Death;

• The marked sites of ancient gibbets — Jacob’s Post and Jack Upperton’s gibbet — and the crossroads where a murderer was buried with a stake through his bowels;

• The remains of a Victorian isolation hospital and fairground, and the site of a Victorian ‘lunatic asylum’

• The manor house that was so haunted its owner negotiated tax relief; and

• Many more stories of ghosts, giants, fairies and, of course, the Devil himself.