Shadowlands A journey through Britain's lost cities and vanished villages

Ghost towns figure in the popular history of the American West, but as Green (London, 2016) documents, there are more ancient parallels in Great Britain. Take, for instance, the Suffolk seaside town of Dunwich, once the thriving capital of East Anglia. Starting in the thirteenth century, several violent storms eroded the cliffside, causing parish churches to slip into the sea, one by one, the last ruin clinging to a precipice into the Victorian era before it, too, collapsed. Other towns vanished as plague raged in the fourteenth century. From 1316 to 1356, the population of the town of Hale in Northamptonshire virtually evaporated. Remote Hirta in the Outer Hebrides survived as a tourist destination until abandoned in 1930 due to citizens' mysterious deaths, perhaps caused by soil contamination. Dorset's Tyneham was a proper English village till compulsorily abandoned in 1943, repurposed as a training ground for British troops. As much as possible, Green puts readers in touch with these sites and their special cultures, now all forsaken.

In this intriguing travelogue, historian Green (London: A Travel Guide Through Time) explores eight British settlements that "exist only as a shadow of their former selves." The lives of some villagers, such as the inhabitants of Skara Brae, an archaeological site dating to the third century BCE on the Orkney Islands, remain mysterious despite the discovery of beads, paint pots, bed frames, and other artifacts. Other ruins figure in modern rivalries, such as the dispute between amateur archaeologist Stuart Wilson and professionals over whether he discovered the lost medieval city of Trellech in a Welsh field in the early 2000s. In some cases, the reasons for a site's abandonment remain murky; in others, however, they're crystal clear. In 1942, 750 villagers in Breckland, East Anglia, were relocated in order to establish a military training area, and in the 1960s, the Welsh town of Capel Celyn (the "Village of the Dammed") was flooded to create a reservoir for Liverpool. The last ruins of the medieval city of Dunwich collapsed into the North Sea in 1922--a fate that will be increasingly common, Green warns, as climate change worsens. Full of evocative imagery and fascinating lore, this vibrant account eulogizes the past and issues a stark warning for the future. Illus. (July)

First-time author Green's haunting travelogue through Britain's disappeared places is both an examination of the historical forces that led to their abandonment and a meditation on the presence of absence in physical and emotional landscapes. From the Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae in Scotland's Orkney Isles, nearly perfectly preserved beneath the coastal sands, to the Welsh village of Capel Celyn, drowned beneath the waters of a reservoir, Green skillfully imagines what life was like in each location before its demise. He contrasts visions of vitality with the melancholy stillness of each site's present state. In the 13th century destruction of Winchelsea, a once-prosperous port swallowed up by encroaching tides, Green sees a timely warning of environmental disaster, while the poignant story of Wharram Percy--a village that faded away in the years after the plague--serves as a reminder of how world events can upend local economies. In each case, Green evokes the deep loss felt by the displaced as livelihoods, traditions, and cultures disappeared along with the communities that supported them. VERDICT Through these slices of British history, Green has woven a moving exploration of impermanence, memory, and the hypnotic allure of the past.--Sara Shreve