The death of his mother releases Everard Mulliver from a duty-bound life and enables him to follow his instincts. With a new sense of freedom, his focus shifts from an inherited grocery business in Bury St Edmunds to an idyllic Suffolk village, where he buys a cottage.

Everard soon integrates into village community and spends less and less time in the town. H W Freeman traces the young man’s growth and development as he forms new relationships in his rural surroundings and displays his own deep-rooted passion for the land.

Down in the Valley, first published in 1930, was Freeman’s second novel. As in Joseph and his Brethren and Chaffinch’s, the Suffolk countryside and farming play strong roles in the story.