Shadowlands
On holiday I finally finished reading "Shadowlands" by Matthew Green. As you can see from the front cover, its strapline is "A Journey Through Lost Britain". How very intriguing. My friend Tony lent it to me at the start of this year. It might be described as eight little books in one for the only thing that appears to connect the eight chapters is the sense that these stories have rarely been properly told. The writer puts his chosen tales into human and historical contexts and given the volume of explanatory notes at the end, you can tell that the content was very well-researched. Chapter One looks at the neolithic settlement of Skara Brae in The Orkneys. This five thousand year old stone-built village re-emerged in 1850 during a terrible storm that shifted the sands that had concealed the place for millennia. Chapter Two featured the lost Welsh city of Trellech that was once the seat of great economic power and influence . Its decline was partly connected w...