DREAMSTREETS: A Journey Through Britain's Village Utopias

Sewage systems to sculpture, chocolate to coal, free trade to electoral emancipation, the book is a personal exploration of why and how village utopias came about, what they tell us about the past, and how they still resonate with us today. 20 years ago Jacqueline Yallop began her working life leading guided walks at a small village high in the fells of the North Pennines. Built by philanthropic employers for families working the lead mines, the isolated settlement was one of a network of 'model' villages which sprang up across Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries. Here she visits and revisits some of these utopian experiments to understand the social, political and cultural contexts from which they emerged. From Scotland's New Lanark Mills to the imposing market square at Tremadog in Wales and the Arts and Crafts cottages of Port Sunlight, she walks the avenues and terraces and considers what remains of the ideals which made these villages so fashionable. Mixing social and political history, art and architecture, travelogue, biography, aesthetics and philosophy with memoir and on-the-ground observation, her years of experience as a novelist brings Yallop's scholarly research to life in her energetic account of the complex and contradictory factors which changed the British landscape. 218pp, archive photos.