Shadowlands: A Journey Through Lost Britain

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Medieval climate change: how the ravages of extreme weather, as the Medieval Warm Period gave way to Little Ice Age, laid waste to the cities of Old Winchelsea and Dunwich Another gravestone, the last one surviving in the final few feet of ground once occupied by a Dunwich church, is that of a man who died in 1796, aged 38. Noting that this is his own age now, Green writes: ‘Soon he too will fall to the sea.’ These places were lost for many various reasons for me the most striking story is that in Chapter eight, which he calls the Village of the Damned. That being the village of Capel Celyn in Wales, a village lost due to man’s need for water resources. While as an urban historian I have recently been looking at how Manchester gained its water from the Lake District and its disregard for the locals. This story is far more poignant as this removal of the people, the village is now under a water reservoir serving the people of England. How Green rebuilds the human stories and their fight is so striking and meaningful. In the early 1960s the Welsh village of Capel Celyn (pictured) was evacuated so it could be flooded to form a reservoir supplying water to Liverpool

The book here is very detailed, and I was able to tell when reading this that Dr. Green had done a large amount of research, from a variety of sources. I noticed that, while he look a largely objective view, he occasionally became slightly opinionated, particularly with his view about how we should ensure that settlements stop disappearing; his conclusion mentions the devastating effects in some places of the Coronavirus pandemic, including public houses that never reopened. I noticed also that he is no fan of King Charles I, who he accused of "political and religious tyranny" at one point. A “brilliant London historian” (BBC Radio) tells the story of Britain as never before—through its abandoned villages and towns.In common with another reviewer, I found the ebook formatting dreadful, with the reference section for each chapter being clunky. As Green puts it near the end of the book: ‘Having toured and meditated upon so many ruins, I had somehow emerged less of a ruin myself.’ Written by a historian, although at times the writing seemed to be more enthusiastic amateur, with the disadvantages that the book can veer off into purple prose (The top of the pines floated in the wind, lofty and conspiratorial, the faint paths pathetic against their might”), peppered with fragmented personal descriptions, reminiscences or suppositions (regularly using modifiers such as “likely”, “say”, “it is even possible”). Shadowlands: A Journey Through Britain's Lost Cities and Vanished Villages,” by Matthew Green (ISBN: 9780393635348), Publication Date: 19 Jul 2022, earns four stars for the narrative, but misses five stars because the book offers no maps and almost no photographs to support the riveting narrative, the addition of which would greatly help place the reader “there.”

A lot of the detective work at Skara Brae was done in the 1920s by Professor Vere Gordon Childe, an interesting character who spoke 17 languages, whose ‘moustache was a force unto itself’, and who could do long division in Roman numerals, ‘as anyone who went to one of his dinners discovered to their cost’. IF the purpose of structure is “to provide a sense of permanence in a natural world that never stands still”, as Matthew Green posits in Shadowlands: a Journey through Lost Britain, then the purpose of ruins might be to remind us of the essential futility of that ambition. Ruins, writes Green in this gripping travelogue cum history of Britain’s disappeared places, “are at once of their time, yet derailments of it, too, bringing the singularity – and fragility – of the present into stark focus”.Gisele Bundchen showcases her toned tummy as she and rumored boyfriend Joaquim Valente enjoy Costa Rica getaway with her children