Author using Sheepwash area, Osmotherley, to highlight climate change

Conservation engineer and author Robert Thornilly Walker, took me on an unexpected tour of Sheepwash, to show me this beautiful part of the North York Moors in a whole new light. It is a key setting for his book "Greenhush".

Despite the mizzly rain which spreads its fingers across the tops of the hills in waves, blotting out light and soaking us through in seconds – even the sheep looked fed up – I was excited about what I was about to see.

We walked from the main car park, Robert striding ahead across the top of the small rounded glacial hill between the car parks, which I had walked countless times before, not knowing it was a bronze age burial ground. Robert pointed his stick towards the ground showing me collections of stones which were the burial mounds – so many of them – and then there were two possible bronze age houses on the top as stone circles, hardly visible to the untrained eye.

As the hill across the road cleared, he pointed to the wall of a bronze-age dyke, which was 80 metres long when first discovered, and through Robert's further research, is now more than 800 metres in length, and to the right, a possible neolithic village by a fallen tree.

Robert Thornilly Walker leading a walk for Osmotherley Society and Institute of Historic Building Co

Robert is a conservation accredited engineer, a director at Structural and Civil Consultants Ltd, who works on structural aspects of historic buildings in need of repair, such as York City Walls and the historic Bars, Ravensworth Castle and Castle Howard. He also designed the exhibition space at Danby Visitor Centre.

He designs with historical materials rather than steel and concrete, and for modern structures he uses local British hardwoods. During this year, the company won an award for its work on Swinton Castle, from the Institution of Structural Engineers, Northern Branch, for an unusual sustainable project.

"The engineers went into the woods to select the trees for the new estate office," he says. "They used sycamore and beech – the thinnings taken from the estate with larch joists. So little is known about timber with little research, and so much known about concrete and steel."

Robert is also a climate change activist who lectures on climate risks at universities and to professionals. He was the spokesperson for world engineers at Paris COP Climate Talks, the former regional chair for the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), and a former member of ICE Climate Change Taskforce.

Recent soil loss has exposed roots and buildings at Sheepwash

He has poured his passion into a novel, for which he gathered information over 15 years. He describes Greenhush as a textbook disguised as a novel. It is a fictional story which highlights the factual risks of the denial of a heating planet, and the dangers the younger generation will face. He decided to write it after speaking in Paris at The COP Climate Talks, realising that he needed to get the message out there, believing the growing problem was not being addressed by professionals or people in power.

Charity, Scientists Warning Europe, say about the book: "This interesting and enjoyable tale is interwoven with pertinent information about global warming and concludes with an important potential solution." A quotation on the first page reads: "The young will recognise that the old generation have knowingly ruined the planet."

His book launch raised money for Oxfam's Syria appeal – much of the book is seen through the eyes of a young female Syrian refugee who believes she has found a safe life in the western world.

Robert spent his childhood in Osmotherley, especially around Sheepwash, where he would cycle to daily to enjoy nature and explore the landscape. His father was a county councillor, and his mother a teacher at Ingleby Arncliffe school. Educated at Ampleforth and then at Oxford where he was able to study all aspects of engineering, he decided on the one where he could be in the fresh air.

Robert Thornilly Walker

"I worked on the Thames Barrier, which was my first job, " he says. "I didn't expect to enjoy London, but I did. I was commuting to work in little boats, going from pier to pier, but working there made me realise something was happening to our climate. Another alarm call happened during my visit to a glacier in New Zealand, where the dates from 1948 to 1975 showed where the glacier used to be over the years. I investigated. I realised this was not a conspiracy theory, but a reality. I started to campaign but was making little headway, hence the birth of the book."

Robert began to write papers and give talks. "People need to start worrying about the future for the younger generation," he says. "Huge savings in time and money can often be made by using lightweight green materials instead of steel and concrete which often has huge overruns in budget. If the government is serious about levelling up, why not ration carbon and those who use less can sell to those who use more?"

As Robert stands in the rain, he expresses hope that his book will raise awareness and get the message out there.

"Even on this beautiful landscape, where each week I seem to discover new findings, " he says sadly, "there are major environmental changes following both the spraying of the bracken and the drying out of the soil. This has exposed so much more archaeology than was previously visible."

Greenrush is available on Amazon and through York Publishing services Ltd on www.yps-publishing.co.uk.Tel: 01904 431213