Tyneham

by Patrick Wright

This is a book about the stories that lie hidden in the folds of an English landscape.
Tyneham is the archetypal 'lost village'; a Dorset hamlet in a beautiful valley evacuated for the sake of the Royal Armoured Corps' tanks during the Second World War, and never returned to its inhabitants despite 'Churchill's pledge' of restitution. It has lurked in the national imagination ever since, as a place of mythical rural innocence violated by the modern world: a symbol of a vanished England, a Thomas Hardy scene blasted by cannon. As film set or as the focus of campaigns for its restoration, Tyneham has become an enduring lost cause.
Patrick Wright does much more than tell the strange, comic, but also moving story of this village and its afterlife. That in itself is a tale in which the villagers and their former landlords are brought vividly to life, and it evokes a mysterious stretch of coastline that has drawn mystics and artists for over a century. As it describes the dramatic collision between tanks and the landscape of Old England, Wright's book also traces out the broader history of conservation and its place in out national imagination.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

420 pages, Hardcover

First published March 16, 1995

About the author

Patrick Wright FBA is a British writer, broadcaster and academic in the fields of cultural studies and cultural history. He was educated at the University of Kent and Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.

Reviews

[Steve Green · Rating 2 out of 5]

As someone who has been to Tyneham a couple of times, and read a couple of books about it, I was intrigued by such a massive tome when I happened across it in a bookshop on holiday. It's a BIG book. Did it need to be? No, probably not. There's a lot of extraneous information that is only loosely related to the story of Tyneham itself. This is best seen as a selection of contextual biographies of a few key individuals, and a lot of political commentary. Stories of residents are mixed in with those of campaigners and military personnel, but it's hard to follow some of the vaguely entwined threads. If you're looking for lots of facts about the village you won't necessarily find them – there are some, but they're quite buried, and the jumping around of time and content makes it difficult to retain them.

I'm not saying it's a bad book, it's just not what you think it may be, certainly based on the reprinted Repeater Books edition I read. Obviously a publisher cover and synopsis should be taken with a pinch of salt, but it does feel a litte disingenuous here. Add a really, really long newly-written preface by the author that is 99% him whining about somebody taking exception to his book and 1% new information, and it feels like a slog to begin with.

[Ipswichblade · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book feels like such a missed opportunity as there is such an interesting story around Tyneham to be written and parts of this book do just that. Unfortunately as others have said on Goodreads it is far too long and goes off at huge tangents including the history of tanks just because tanks were at the army base.. It is half way through the book before the event that ultimately this book is about makes an appearance which is the day residents were forced to leave the village and then this is described in less than a chapter. There are no stories of the day, did anyone object and refuse to leave? what about the village store , were the owners set up in a new business? There a couple of brief stories about the villagers new homes but surely there is more to tell. The most interesting part for me were the ones about the action groups set up in the late 60s and early 70s who certainly had some "interesting" characters
There still feels like there is a story to be written about half the length but with a more human element

[David Pearce · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although the subject matter was potentially very interesting the writing was extremely difficult to engage with as it was far too long and detailed. I tried my best to get on with it but ended up skimming through the bulk of it.

[Ken Sampson · Rating 4 out of 5]

[1 Sep 2000] An interesting and informative read.

[Rachel]

Joanna Quinn inspired by this before writing The Whalebone Theatre

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overlong, could do with some editing down. Had to remember a lot of characters and their relationships (hard for me to do). however saying that it is a great amount of research and historical details that are worth recording.

[Stacey Woods · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very difficult to read and not always relevant!