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The Lost Village: In Search of a Forgotten Rural England
by: Richard Askwith

List Price: £18.99

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Used Price: £11.48
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780091909130
ISBN: 0091909139
Label: Ebury Press
Manufacturer: Ebury Press
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: April 03, 2008
Publisher: Ebury Press
Studio: Ebury Press
Sales Rank: 116771

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Editorial Review:

The Sunday Times:
`[Richard Askwith] succeeds handsomely, ferreting out a remarkable array of old-timers...their disappearing world captured so vividly'

The Independent:
'Perceptive, nuanced, restlessly melancholic'

The Sunday Times:
'You really must read... `The Lost Village': a quest, both funny and sad, for the remnants of English country life

Daily Mail:
'Glorious evocation'

Book Description:
A quest for a disappearing England; a dramatically readable search for the fading voices and patterns of a rural way of life

Product Description:
Rural life as it is traditionally imagined is dying before our eyes. Post offices, shops, pubs and farms are closing in thousands; churches and small schools are not far behind. And English village life, with its unchanging rhythms, seems to be vanishing with them. Villagers no longer live out their lives in the old ways, scarcely altered for generations; instead, a new breed of country-dweller, with roots anywhere but in the local landscape, has taken over.

Yet the ideal of the quiet village - unspoilt, unpretentious, and growing almost organically out of the land and the past - remains one of the most potent in the English imagination. And a few old-fashioned country folk, for whom that ideal was a reality, do still exist if you look hard enough.

Richard Askwith, an award-winning writer and journalist, describes a journey in search of an almost lost rural England, through dales and suburbs, down ancient lanes and estates, from Cornwall to Northumberland, Cumbria to Suffolk.

He captures the voices of men and women for whom the old ways were life-shaping realities: poachers and gamekeepers, farmers and hunters, publicans and clergymen, thatchers and blacksmiths. And, in the process, he demonstrates that, while the landscape more changed than we thought, the past is never so simple as we imagine...

Synopsis:
The idea of the village - unspoilt, unpretentious, unchanging and growing almost organically out of the landscape - is one of the most potent in the English imagination. Writers, artists and ordinary people have waxed lyrical on the theme for centuries, while today millions have left the cities in search of the rural idyll. Yet the village is plainly dying. The unchanging rhythms of village life, as experienced with little variations by generations, have vanished. But not without trace ...they exist in living memory. In the voices of men and women for whom the old ways were life-shaping realities. Richard Askwith, an award-winning writer and journalist, describes a journey in search of the quintessential English village, through dales and suburbs, down ancient lanes and estates. He captures the voices of poachers and gamekeepers, farmers and hunters, nurses and postmen, teachers and craftsmen, and demonstrates that, while the landscape more changed than we thought, the past is never so simple as we imagine.

About the Author:
Richard Askwith is Associate Editor of the Independent. His writing has appeared in the Independent, the Observer, the Daily Telegraph, the Mail on Sunday, The Countryman and the New Statesman. His highly-acclaimed first book, Feet in the Clouds, won the National Sports Book of the Year Best New Writer, as well as the Bill Rollinson Prize for Landscape & Tradition at the Lakeland Book of the Year Awards. He lives in a small village in Northamptonshire.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A true picture of England
This is a wonderful book that should be read by anyone who cares about the decline of English rural life. It's an account of a journey through the English countryside in search of 'real' country people and communities who still have roots in the past and the local landscape. (The author captures an amazing array of voices of rural old-timers - farmers, poachers, fishermen, smallholders, gamekeepers, huntsmen, etc) But what really stays with you is the Askwith's voice, which is by turns poetic, melancholy and amusing.

Books : The Lost Village: In Search of a Forgotten Rural England