Flagon Press is the imprint belonging to James Crowden Publishing and its aim is to publish local books with the same ethos as local food. In other words, local subjects for local books, local writers, local designers, local printers, alternative low key marketing, low carbon footprint distribution to local bookshops and other alternative outlets. The main graphic designer is the artist Andrew Crane of Whitelackington near Ilminster. Two of the covers already used by Flagon Press are from mixed media textile works by Alice Crane of Wambrook.

James Crowden’s first book Blood, Earth & Medicine was a hot lead monotype/letter press book printed on a 5 ½ ton Heidelberg by the Parrett Press in 1991. The same Heidelberg printing press has now moved a few miles to Ilminster and is now being used by Rose Mills Print. Other books for Flagon Press have been printed and bound by Remous of Milborne Port on the Dorset/Somerset border.

Flagon Press is a small press and treats each book as an individual project. Click on the titles below for more details..

James Crowden on Air: Join James as he traces the meaning and origin of the ancient symbol of the 'Three Hares' on BBC Radio 4 'Chasing Hares' (click to visit BBC). Here you can listen again to James Crowden (writer and historian) uncovering the facts that stretch from a church in Devon to a high mountain kingdom in the Himalayas. Go detective and discover why an ancient symbol in the roof of a Dartmoor church turns out to link paganism, Islam, Christianity and Buddhism over almost 2000 years. Also see www.chrischapmanphotography.com/hares for more information on the 'Three Hares' project.

Comming Soon: Ciderland is due to be published in October 2008 by Birlinn of Edinburgh. Ciderland has over 200 colour photographs, a long historical introduction accompanied by in depth interviews with over twenty cider and perry makers from Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire as well as an extensive gazetteer featuring over 130 producers.

James Crowden is an author and poet living in Somerset. Born in Plymouth in 1954, he was raised on the western edge of Dartmoor. In 1972 he joined the army and served in Cyprus travelling widely in Eastern Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and north west India. In 1976-77 he spent a winter on the northern side of the Himalaya, in the remote Zangskar Valley in Ladakh. It was from this experience that he developed a lifelong interest in agriculture and Buddhism. James has a degree in Civil Engineering from Bristol University and later studied ethnology at Magdalen College, Oxford and the Pitt Rivers Museum. At the age of 21 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

For the last 20 years James has worked in North Dorset and South Somerset as a shepherd, sheep shearer, cider maker and forester. The choice of manual work was deliberate and gave him a deeper understanding of the landscape.

James has now retired from working on the land and is writing full time. Over the last few years he has worked on many different projects, in particular with Common Ground. In 1999 he was made their Apple Day Poet Laureate and subsequently wrote a libretto for a major new environmental opera called The Silver Messenger which was performed in Christchurch Priory in July 2001. This was part of Common Ground's three year Confluence Project with the composer Karen Wimhurst on the River Stour in Dorset. Recently James has worked on several recording projects for Year of the Artist and Somerset Now, as well as working on Foot & Mouth poetry with Devon photographer Chris Chapman.

James's poetry has often been featured on BBC Radio 4 and television, as well as Literature Festivals at Dartington, Wells, Ludlow and Oxford. He enjoys working in schools and gives a wide range of poetry workshops, talks and lectures. Published in 2004 'Waterways' is Jame's latest book commissioned by the National Trust on rivers and canals in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is part of the National Trust 'Living Landscape Series'.

Dorset Coast, Dorset Man and Dorset Women together make an ideal companion set..