On holiday I finally finished reading "Shadowlands" by Matthew Green. As you can see from the front cover, its strapline is "A Journey Through Lost Britain". How very intriguing. My friend Tony lent it to me at the start of this year.
It might be described as eight little books in one for the only thing that appears to connect the eight chapters is the sense that these stories have rarely been properly told. The writer puts his chosen tales into human and historical contexts and given the volume of explanatory notes at the end, you can tell that the content was very well-researched.
Chapter One looks at the neolithic settlement of Skara Brae in The Orkneys. This five thousand year old stone-built village re-emerged in 1850 during a terrible storm that shifted the sands that had concealed the place for millennia.
Chapter Two featured the lost Welsh city of Trellech that was once the seat of great economic power and influence. Its decline was partly connected with the impact of The Black Death in the middle ages but there were other reasons too.
Chapter Three concerned the once important seaport of Winchelsea in East Sussex. Coastal erosion and deposition were largely responsible for its decline. Matthew Green does a fine job of conjuring up a sense of its former glory.
Chapter Four looks at a deserted medieval village called Wharram Percy in The Yorkshire Wolds. It is a place I have visited myself. Like Trellech, it was partly done for by The Black Death but again there were other reasons such as the growth of sheep farming in medieval times.
Chapter Five investigates Dunwich on the Suffolk coast. Like Winchelsea, it was once an important port but over a century it had to gradually surrender to the sea. I have been there myself and there is very little left to point to its former stature.
Chapter Six takes us out into The Atlantic and the remote, craggy island of St Kilda where a hardy community had carved out a meagre existence for hundreds of years. In the 1930's remaining islanders were evacuated to the Scottish mainland, never to return. I blogged about this melancholic place before. Go here.
Chapter Seven finds us in a vast military training site in the heart of Norfolk. There were villages there and farms too but before World War II the vast acreage was requisitioned by The Ministry of Defence. In the early years of this century, the army built a very realistic Afghan village there - complete with sounds and smells to prepare Afghanistan-bound soldiers for the kind of situations they might find themselves in. They even brought in Afghan immigrants and refugees to inhabit the place during training sessions.
Chapter Eight was about Capel Celyn in North Wales. Once a peaceful green valley it was claimed by the city of Liverpool for the construction of a new reservoir that would fulfil the English city's water needs into the future. In the 1950's the project sparked controversy and a cause celebre for Welsh nationalists everywhere.
I enjoyed this book greatly. It taught me many things and if Matthew Green should ever happen upon this blogpost, I would just like to say "thank you" to him. A great idea and well-executed.
Many years ago my school army cadet corps summer camp was at the Army training centre at Thetford in Norfolk, and I can claim to have conquered the assault course there that was used in one of the Dad's Army episodes.
ReplyDeleteDon't tell me Pike!
DeleteInteresting how some areas had just disappeared. what's going to happen when climate change gets going.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point Red. The east coast of England is particularly vulnerable to rising sea waters.
DeleteI think I would like to read this book. I'll do an ebay search for it. St.Kilda sounds desolate and cold.
ReplyDeleteI believe that St KIlda in Melbourne drew a few immigrants from the island of St KIlda.
DeleteGreat review, maybe I should add that one to my reading list.
ReplyDeleteYes, maybe but it has some big words in it David!
DeleteThis sounds very much my kind of book! Maybe The Little Ripon Bookshop has it, and I can buy it there in July.
ReplyDeleteI well remember your posts about Wharram Percy and St. Kilda. Intriguing places, like the others you mention here.
Why not contact the author directly and invite him to read your review, and even comment, if he feels like it? I have done so several times in the past and have always had pleasant correspondence with the authors. Not all of them have chosen to comment on my blog, but most of them; and they all expressed the pleasure from such feedback and contact with their readers.
I am too shy to do that Meike!
DeleteHAH!
DeleteSounds like a book that I would enjoy. I shall look-out for it. I think the C of E folk should put the roof back on Wharram Percy.
ReplyDeleteI think the CofE folk dismantled the church roof for safety reasons.
DeleteThey are well covered subjects but it would be interesting to get the book. I loved Wharram Percy, a village with no roads going past just a delightful walk over countryside to find it.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many deserted villages on old maps of England. Usually they are just humps and bumps in the landscape. Little remains.
DeleteI thought your blog title was about the film about CS Lewis YP. I have seen it only 24 times.
ReplyDeleteI have never seen that film but I suspect that I might appreciate it Dave.
DeleteThere are probably sufficient similarly forgotten places for several more books. And ones shadows of their former selves. I liked that TV series 'Villages by the Sea". How impermanent things can be.
ReplyDeleteRavenser Odd and Ravenspurn at the mouth of The Humber could be subjects for a follow-up book.
DeleteI think you should definitely write the author a note to tell him how much you appreciated his writing and his research. I bet you anything he will be pleased.
ReplyDeleteI knew that the title was familiar, but didn't associate it with a book. Like northsider I remember the film - which I've only seen once!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good read, I'll have a look on Amazon and see if it's available on Kindle.
Sounds like a very interesting book!
ReplyDeleteGood review, Neil. I have placed a hold on the book at my library.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely going to read this. Thank you for sharing. From the base of the mini-mountain in Maine where Spring is "springing" and all sorts of little creatures are out at night making pleasant sounds.
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