Richard Muir
The Lost Villages of Britain
London 1982
Stron 285, format: 18x25 cm
144 czarno-białych i 33 kolorowych ilustracji
Książka jest używana: bez defektów, stan dobry plus.
Few people could stand amongst the relics of a lost village and not be moved by a sense of history, melancholy and curiosity. Once regarded as rarities, it is now realised that lost villages are a characteristic feature of the British countryside.
In this beautifully illustrated book, Richard Muir describes first the deserted prehistoric and Dark Age hamlets and farmsteads, then the medieval village and its communal lifestyle. He follows this with chapters covering the different forms of medieval desertion: the horrors of the Black Death, the land clearances by the rich sheep barons and later by the Highland chiefs, and the villages removed by greedy landowners in search of stately homes and parks. Finally, Richard Muir describes the villages lost to the march of industrial progress, like the abandoned mining villages of north-east England.
The searcher should not expect to find romantic, ivy-hung ruins at the typical lost village site for while dwellings crumbled and the church decayed, turf often spread like scar tissue to seal a deserted site. At thousands of different locations, the clues which could tell the tale of the prehistoric or medieval peasant, Highland crofter or Irish feudal villager lie entombed.
Apart from being an absorbing study of the lost village sites of Britain, Dr Muir's new book introduces the reader to an enormously important and beleagured facet of the British landscape. Using contemporary sources, his own research and photographs, he brings many of these sites alive again. No one can fail to be absorbed by this fascinating book yet be concerned about our future inheritance.
Contents
The Whys and Wherefores, Definitions and Debts page ii
Prelude 19
i Lost in the Depths of Time 21
2 Meeting the Medieval Village 5i
3 Warlords and Abbots 77
4 The Pawns on Nature's Chessboard 92
5 Abodes of Horror n8
6 Beware of the Sheep 137
7 The Highlands Made Desert 158
8 The Irish Dimension 186
9 The Price of a Park 202
10 The Recently Departed 222
11 Hunting the DMV 243
12 Messages from the Grave 266
appendix i Reading on 271
appendix 2 Lists of Main Sites 273
Index 279
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