Clive Webb explains how a once-forgotten Edwardian bestseller turned the Adur Valley into a spiritual and literary landscape – and why its author still matters 125 years on.
At the turn of the twentieth century, a small part of Sussex became known by another name: ‘Roadmender Country’. This secluded area was spoken of in the same breath as the literary landscapes of Hardy and the Brontë sisters, thanks to a slim volume published in 1902 that became an international bestseller: The Roadmender by Michael Fairless.
The book was wrapped in mystery. Readers curious about its authorship discovered that the writer was already dead. Later still, it emerged that the name Michael Fairless was itself a fiction. The Roadmender is set partly in London, but its heart lies in the Adur Valley. It tells the story of a humble roadmender – his modest life, his death and his acceptance of fate. At its core, the book is a work of Christian mysticism that promotes the philosophy of natural revelation: the belief that the beauty and order of the natural world are signs of God’s guiding hand.
Roadmender Country
Roadmender Country, the stretch of Sussex that frames the book’s opening and closing, is a kind of map – in fact, three maps in one. First, it is a geographical map of the real landscape encompassing Ashurst, Henfield, Shermanbury and the River Adur. Second, it is a temporal map that laments the decline of traditional rural ways and the rise of an industrial capitalism that alienated workers from their craft. As the book reflects: ‘To and fro in front of the loom, lifting a lever at either end, paces he who once with painstaking intelligence drove the shuttle. Then he tasted the joy of completed work, that which his eye had looked upon, and his hands had handled…’
Third, and most profoundly, Roadmender Country is a metaphysical map. The road the protagonist tends is a symbol of life’s journey: ‘To look backwards for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward…’
The book is filled with lyrical descriptions of the Sussex landscape – from the tolling of a monastery bell to standing on ‘the lean grey Downs which keep watch and ward between the country and the sea.’ One of its more redolent passages reads: ‘I stand on the summit hatless, the wind in my hair, the smack of salt on my cheek, all round me rolling stretches of cloud shadowed down, no sound but the shrill mourn of the peewit and the gathering of the sea.’
Most resonant of all is the intimate description of a microcosm – the world outside the bedroom window of the dying roadmender. The wind through sycamore branches, house martins chattering in the eaves, the turning of the seasons: all are evoked in colour, fragrance and reverence. The prose is suffused with awe for the natural world and a quiet acceptance of one’s place within it.
A thread that binds people together
The Roadmender was an immediate literary phenomenon. By 1930, it had run through some fifty editions, with sales exceeding 150,000. Readers around the world were drawn to its simplicity and spiritual comfort. The book acquired particular resonance amid the horrors of the First World War. That conflict brought deaths on an industrial scale: more than 900,000 soldiers from the British Empire lost their lives, and another two million became casualties. Sussex shared that loss, especially on 30 June 1916, when 366 men of the Royal Sussex Regiment fell in the Battle of Boar’s Head and a further thousand were wounded or captured.
During the war, soldiers in the trenches often turned to literature for solace and emotional grounding. The Roadmender was among the most popular books sent to the front or kept in hospital libraries for convalescing troops. Its gentle reflections on nature, mortality, and the soul’s journey resonated deeply with men facing the horrors of war. The book became an inner refuge – a way to reconnect with beauty, faith, and humanity while surrounded by death and destruction. It suggested that suffering was not meaningless but a thread that binds people together in shared experience. For soldiers grappling with existential questions amid the slaughter, The Roadmender offered dignity, spiritual connection, and a sense of purpose.
Margaret Barber
The mystery surrounding the book lingered for a decade. It was not until 1912, ten years after The Roadmender had touched thousands of readers, that the real identity of Michael Fairless was revealed. The supposed male author turned out to be a woman: Margaret Barber. She was born on 7 May 1869 in Rastrick, Yorkshire, the youngest of three daughters. Her father, a lawyer, died when she was eleven. Her mother, struggling to cope, sent her to Torquay to care for a sick relative. The two later settled in Suffolk.
Devoting herself to public service, Barber trained as a nurse and undertook charitable work in the slums of East London. After her mother’s death in 1891 she spent time in Germany before being adopted by the Dowsons, a cultured London family. By then a degenerative spinal condition and failing eyesight meant she needed constant care.
Unable to continue nursing, Barber turned to writing. The Roadmender was composed both at the Dowson family home on Chelsea Embankment and in her downstairs bedroom at Mock Bridge House, their rural retreat near Henfield. Barber’s pen name, Michael Fairless, combined her father’s name with that of a childhood friend. A recollection by one of her sisters reveals the determination with which the book was completed: ‘When she became too ill to go on with her modelling, she began to write; when her writing could not be done in a sitting position, she propped the paper on her chest and wrote lying down; by and by the right hand could no longer be used, so she wrote with her left… When increased physical weakness made writing impossible, she dictated.’
Lo how I loved Thee
Margaret Barber died in August 1901, aged just thirty two. In the years that followed, a small industry sprang up around The Roadmender: maps and guidebooks for literary tourists eager to walk through the landscape that had shaped the book. For many pilgrims, the quiet countryside of the Adur Valley became a source of comfort and inspiration. Eventually, the book’s popularity waned. After the trauma of two world wars, many readers became disillusioned with the ideals that had underpinned Edwardian culture. The decline of religious belief and the rise of a more sceptical worldview made The Roadmender seem too closely tied to a bygone era – nostalgic and out of step with the modern world.
Born out of physical pain and reflection, The Roadmender may not be widely read today. Yet its lyrical tone still echoes in contemporary writing that blends landscape with inward contemplation. This year marks the 125th anniversary of Barber’s death, and it would be a shame to let it pass unmarked. On a recent visit, I was saddened to see that her grave at St James’s Church in Ashurst is in some disrepair, though it still bears the inscription ‘Lo how I loved Thee’. So perhaps now is the moment to take out the Ordnance Survey map and walk again through a landscape still haunted by her spirit – a place where imagination, faith and nature once met in harmony.
About Clive Webb
Clive Webb is Professor of Modern American History at the University of Sussex and most recently author of Vietdamned: How the World’s Greatest Minds Put America on Trial (Profile Books). He is researching a new history of Sussex based on the county’s museum collections.
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