Hugh Thomson (born 1960) is a British travel writer, film maker and explorer. His ''The Green Road into the Trees: A Walk Through England'' won the 2014 Wainwright Prize for nature and travel writing.
He was appointed as a

Royal Literary Fund The Royal Literary Fund (RLF) is a benevolent fund that gives assistance to published British writers in financial difficulties. Founded in 1790, and granted a royal charter in 1818, the Fund has helped an extensive roll of authors through its lon ...

fellow at

Oxford Brookes University Oxford Brookes University (OBU; formerly known as Oxford Polytechnic) is a public university, public university in Oxford, England. It is a new university, having received university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. Th ...

in 2012–2014. He has led research expeditions in Peru exploring

Inca The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...

settlements, including the discovery of Cota Coca in 2002 and a 2003 study of Llaqtapata. '' a longer English version of the article that was first published in the Revista Andina (2004, #39), with the title "El redescubrimiento de Llactapata, antiguo observatorio de Machu Picchu"'' He has also led filming expeditions to

Mount Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro () is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world, at above sea level and above its plateau base. It is also the highest volcano i ...

, Bhutan, Afghanistan, and Mexico. Thomson is also an award-winning film maker: his '' Dancing in the Street: A Rock and Roll History'' television documentary series was nominated for the Huw Wheldon Award For The Best Arts Programme or Series in the 1997

BAFTA The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

awards and the three-part ''Indian Journeys'' he created with

William Dalrymple William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple (born 20 March 1965) is a Delhi-based Scottish people, Scottish historian and art historian, as well as a curator, broadcaster and critic. He spends nine months of each year on his goat farm in India. He i ...

won the 2001 Grierson Award for Best Documentary Series. He has an MA from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and is a Fellow of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

. His grandfathers were G. P. Thomson and W. L. Bragg, both of whom, and both their fathers

J. J. Thomson Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was an English physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of ...

and W. H. Bragg, won the

Nobel Prize in Physics The Nobel Prize in Physics () is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the ...

Publications

*''The White Rock: An Exploration of the Inca Heartland'' (2001,

Weidenfeld & Nicolson Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (established 1949), often shortened to W&N or Weidenfeld, is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It has been a division of the French-owned Orion Publishing Group since 1991. History George Weidenfeld ...

, ) *''Nanda Devi: A Journey to the Last Sanctuary'' (2004, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ) *''Cochineal Red: Travels Through Ancient Peru'' (2006, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ) *''Tequila Oil: Getting Lost in Mexico'' (2009, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ) *''50 Wonders of the World'' (2009,

Quercus An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

, ) *''The Green Road into the Trees: An Exploration of England'' (2012, Preface Publishing (

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

), ) :* Also published as: ''The Green Road into the Trees: A Walk Through England'' *''One Man and a Mule: Across England with a Pack Mule'' (2017, Preface Publishing (

), ) *''Historical Peru'' (2019, Horizon Guides)

References

External links

* *

"Writers Aloud" interviews with Hugh Thomson, 2016
part 1
an
part 2
1960 births Living people British travel writers Alumni of the University of Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society {{UK-writer-stub