That Near and Distant Place by Patricia Wright
Four linked episodes, beginning at the start of the English Civil War, bring a different century alive, until John Smith flies over the village of Furnace Green on his way to war in 1940 and fuses past, present and future in the crucible of war. This novel completes the story of England's past begun in Patricia Wright's I am England, winner of the 1987 Georgette Heyer Historical Novel Prize.