This is a fascinating, informative and thought-provoking book. Matthew Green certainly knows how to bring the history of places, and the people who lived there, to life. He doesn't just give endless facts about why villages and towns in Britain have disappeared, he wraps the necessary facts in rich historical detail and gives everything a context.
I think the tragedies explored in this excellent book show just how fragile our position is in a world once again plagued by devastating wars and ruthless dictators. And then there are the ever present threats caused by climate change and our apparent reluctance to do anything to slow down its inevitable destructive process. The recent pandemic could perhaps be seen as a premonition of what the future holds? It could be the stuff of nightmares.

"This is the extraordinary tale of Britain’s eerie and remarkable ghost towns and villages; shadowlands that once hummed with life". What a statement!, A fascinating look at the abandoned towns and cities that have been left for a variety of reasons. The author explores local art, research, myth and interviews people to tell us these fascinating tales of selected locations. A real mix of social and cultural history.

When I was a child we used to take our caravan to the cliffs at Dunwich at the weekend. Every year the cliffs eroded a bit more, taking an abandoned graveyard with them. It was said that if you listened hard enough you could hear the bells of the long drowned church ringing at night. How could I resist Shadowlands: A Journey Through Lost Britain by Matthew Green. Shadowlands tells the story of lost and disappeared communities in Britain including Dunwich. I just loved this delve into the creation and destruction of thriving communities. Definitely one for the archeologically inclined.

It’s hard to describe this book as it tries to be all things to all men. I wasn’t keen on the notes at the beginning and it carried on in the same vein, pretty dull. Wordy and pretentious the whole way through and you have to wade through so much to find nuggets of interest. It would have been better had there been far less of the more well known places in order to feature more but obscure sites. I had high hopes for this book but sadly it was disappointing.

Shadowlands turned out to be the perfect book for me right now. Each chapter is a little potted history of a vanished place, whether a village abandoned after the Black Death, a city disappearing into the sea, or a Welsh village drowned by the Liverpool Corporation to create a reservoir to supply water to industry. The selections are interesting and varied -- the chapters on Skara Brae, the villages in the STANTA area used for army training, and Capel Celyn were my favourites, but I found the whole book interesting.

Green doesn't shy away from the fact that England has a nasty history, a habit of treading on its neighbours. When he discusses the Marcher lords, he's clear about the violent control of the Welsh by what became the English state. When he discusses the drowning of Capel Celyn, he's very clear that it was a thing that was done by English people against the will of many, many Welsh people, and that not a single Welsh person actually voted for it or gave their consent in any kind of democratic process.

His writing is very clear and very readable, and he conjures up images of the places he writes about. It's not a richly illustrated volume, but I don't care much about that; others might wish for a few photos alongside the text. I enjoyed it very, very much.

Shadowlands by historian Matthew Green is a non-fiction exploration of vanished communities, abandoned homesteads, lost cities and drowned villages. Told in chronological order it covers a handful of topics and offers a fascinating look at areas of Britain that are now either abandoned or lost to the sea. Green is a superb writer, and manages to deftly balance the facts and background of each subject with his own achingly haunting prose as he details his own personal journey to each location. There are eight main chapters - covering Skara Brae in the Orkneys, the lost city of Trellech in Monmouthshire, Winchelsea, Wharram Percy, Dunwich (which was claimed by the sea), the island community of St Kilda, the eerie outposts of Norfolk that were utilised by the military, and the village of Capel Celyn, drowned to make way for a reservoir.

There's so much more going on here. The book is littered with snippets of trivia and facts that even those not seemingly interested in history won't help but find captivating. Brilliantly researched, this feels like a labour of love to the author. Green wonderfully manages to capture the imagination, his prose bringing to life the finest detail of each location. You can feel what it must have been like to life during these times. I knew very little about the subject beforehand, but I feel like my knowledge of British history and geography has been hugely enhanced by reading this.

There are illustrations scattered throughout, which help the reader visualise that which is now gone. The book is haunting, beautiful and sad, reminding us that the passage of time has casualties, some caused by nature, some of our own making. I thoroughly enjoyed this and have no hesitation in recommending it.

I, along with many others, have a strange fascination with abandoned places, so the idea of looking at British history through the lens of lost settlements was a really intriguing idea to me.

Matthew Green is a social historian, and the best parts of this book are where he brings that to the forefront. Knowing the day-to-day lives of neolithic island communities, or how tourism impacted the way of life in the remotest parts of Britain, are fascinating to read about and portrayed brilliantly. Green’s writing is compelling and evocative, creating a very vivid image of what life was like.

Some of the chapters are much more recent, such as the chapter on Capel Celyn, which I found particularly interesting. Where the ancient settlements are fascinating for how far removed they are from us, this one was because it was so recent and has a visible impact that we still see today.

The one chapter that didn’t really fit was on the military training village, which became more about current military tactics rather than a social history on Britain. I did get the sense that Green would rather have focussed on some former training villages rather than the most current one, but that due to lack of information, or some other reason, that wasn’t possible.

Overall this was a really interesting read, examining different periods of history through the villages and towns left behind.

I received a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.

A really fascinating read about the mysterious subject of lost settlements. I picked this up mainly for the 20th Century disappearances, as I live near Tyneham, which is mentioned early in the chapter about the Norfolk villages that were claimed by the MOD, but the lost medieval settlements are interesting too - an especially great level of detail here on these large settlements that have declined and now disappeared.

Lots of great information which must have taken endless hours of research, and it was quite easy to dip in and out of this book on a chapter by chapter basis.

There is plenty of information for further reading too in a comprehensive references section - all round an excellent read.

Shadowlands was a delightful dive into the cracks of history. Some of the sites I was familiar with, but the rest I wasn't and it felt like going on a treasure hunt. Green did an excellent job of bringing his research to bear in a way that was accessible and engaging, and I think this is a book I will pick up again and again.

A well-researched and readable account of a fascinating subject. Recently, I visited Dunwich (one of the sites featured in the book), in Suffolk, and having read this book beforehand really added to the overall experience and enjoyment of the visit. Recommended.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Exactly as the tagline suggests, this explored lost areas, often reclaimed by nature, throughout Britain. I read this book in small increments and in its entirety, despite not being able to visit many of the spots mentioned myself. I found it solidly enjoyable and interestingly formatted throughout.

This book delves right into the history of some lost villages of the United Kingdom. I was especially interested in the parts around Stanta as it’s fairly local to me. I also hadn’t read non fiction for a while and this was a great fall back into it. There was lots of info for all the villages and very in depth. This would be a perfect read if you were visiting one of the different areas

I have a fascination with abandoned and ruined places, particularly those that once housed large numbers of people – either domestically or for employment – which may well be a result of growing up close to Ladybower Reservoir and its twin drowned villages of Derwent and Ashopton. So this book very much appealed to me, with its stories of how different British villages, towns, and even cities, developed, thrived, and then ceased to exist. The author has visited each of the places he writes about, and this allows the reader to follow in his footsteps, even to those places not usually accessible to the general public.

The book also documents what happened to each settlement after it was abandoned, and, in the case of those that were lost, how each was rediscovered, along with any controversy surrounding the archaeology or post-desertion treatment of the buildings and their surrounding environment. Each chapter covers with a single place, with the chapters arranged roughly chronologically according to the dates of abandonment, and themed around the reasons for, and causes of, abandonment and destruction.

I’d vaguely heard of Skara Brae, the oldest and one of the most mysterious of the abandoned places, but found myself unexpectedly fascinated by the story of its discovery, the various excavations and the ongoing research into what happened to its final inhabitants. By total contrast, the much larger, but almost as undocumented in the contemporary historical records, city of Trellech struck me as having a much sadder story in the present than in its putative past, with doubts being cast over the importance and veracity of the discoveries and the care with which the excavations had been performed.

Moving forward again, the other settlements all had a greater degree of familiarity to them, either because I’d visited the areas in which they are located or because I have researched villages in other parts of the country that have met, or come close to meeting, similar fates. I think my favourite, if death, doom and destruction can result in favouritism, was Wharram Percy – possibly because the village was abandoned due to a medieval pandemic, and then visited by the author during our most recent pandemic.

I enjoyed all the little details of everyday life in each place, which highlighted both how similar the inhabitants are to us and how very different they were at the same time. My one reservation about the book was that some chapters felt to contain a little too much padding, and I’d have maybe preferred another couple of chapters in the same number of pages. I still bought a copy for my Mum as a birthday present, though.

Shadowlands; A Journey Through Lost Britain by Matthew Green looks at places in the UK that are deserted or abandoned, and puts them in the context of their history.

This is an interesting book with the author visiting each site, so you get to know what they look like today.

I found this to be a good book, and liked the mix of setting it in it's historical place, and what it's like today.

Shadowlands; A Journey Through Lost Britain was published on 17th March 2022, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Matthew Green on Twitter and Instagram.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Faber and Faber.

This book is so rich in information, a total treat for anyone interested in the history of the British Isles. I found my jaw dropping on several occasions and it was a particularly poignant and close to home ending with the chapter on Capel Celyn, the flooded North Wales village. So informative and it feels like we journey with the author to visit these sites of national interest. Thank you for that.

This is a well written, well researched book that takes you on a journey through some fascinating places in time. Sometimes I felt that the sections were a bit long-winded and would have benefited from further editing, but this didn't detract too much from the enjoyment of the stories.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e copy for review.

This was at times a fascinating insight into lost places from around the British Isles, telling the stories of these places, and what led to them being abandoned or destroyed. I would have liked more photographs to be included so I could visualise what was left of the places that the author was describing. I found the history in some chapters more interesting than others - the author covered a variety of different reasons why settlements had been abandoned, including both the economical and ecological, and some of these reasons were more interesting to me than others, naturally. The book is written as a travel memoir, so the author's opinions and descriptions of the places take up quite a lot of text space, which wasn't of as much interest to me as the more factual side of things.

Revealing glimpses into our past

Fascinating tales of rise and decline of societies and places across the UK from the stone age through to more recent times. Whether these places were lost due to nature, man’s actions or a combination of these forces they all offer interesting insights into our ancestors and history and provide some sage lessons in cause and effect.

I was particularly touched by the stories of stone age Skara Brae, the impact of plague on many villages over later centuries, the clearances, the drowning of a welsh village to provide water for Liverpool and villages requisitioned for training for the D-Day landings. There are some revealing historical insights in this book, I found it an easy and thought provoking read that I would recommend to anyone with an interest in history.

I’m sure that there are many more stories to tell here in the UK and around the world of lost places and peoples and I hope that Matthew will consider writing further volumes to share their tales.

I was given this book from the author via netgalley only for the pleasure of reading and leaving an honest review should I choose to.

An interesting read about towns and villages in Britain that have ceased to exist. Sad that people once lived in these communities but at least this book keeps the memories of such places alive and not forgotten.

this one is a slow dense read, which isn't necessarily a bad thing!! the author examines various points in the uk that have been uncovered, whole communties and cultures that existed so long ago. i loved the passion and excitement the author has for these sites, and all the interviews he conducted with like minded people. i definitely learned a lot!!