The ghostly ruins of vanished Britain

Take a walk in the English countryside and you get the impression that little has changed. The churches and farmhouses, the hedgerows and footpaths – much of this has been preserved for centuries. However, as Matthew Green argues in Shadowlands, there is also a history of lost towns and abandoned villages hidden beneath the tranquil surface. His book tells the stories of eight such places, as well as the disasters that led to their disappearance, offering a phantom history of Britain through vanished settlements and forgotten occupants.

Shadowlands begins with the Neolithic village of Skara Brae in Orkney that was buried in sand several thousand years ago. It ends with the rural community of Capel Celyn, who lived in a remote valley in north-west Wales until their homes were submerged in 1956 to provide a reservoir for the people of Liverpool. In between, Green discusses river ports becoming silted over and coastal towns sinking into the sea, as well as villages emptied by plague or relocated by war.