The Fields Beneath: The History of One London Village

London, that city of villages, has never been so vividly recounted as in this particular study of Kentish Town. Gillian Tindall takes us along the banks of London's long-buried Fleet River, past wells and into public houses to reveal the real but fascinating history of its tenants, traders, freeholders and landlords. We watch as this village is absorbed by the metropolis and observe its desperate struggle to keep an identity, despite being fragmented by railways, bombed and developed. The Fields Beneath is one of a precious handful of books (like Montaillou and Akenfield) that in their precise examination of a particular locality open our understanding of universal themes, as if the microscopic examination of one place holds the key to a better understanding of the nature of community, and the role of the individual within it.

Table of Contents:
CONTENTS Maps Postscript 2011 1 Introduction 2 Roads and Rivers 3 Manors and Gentlemen's Seats 4 Ordinary People 5 'One hundred and twenty-two houses' 6 The Rustic Idyll 7 Country into Suburb 8 'Black Snow' 9 'Railway trains run to and fro' 10 With Gas and Attendance 11 As far as we have got Parliament Hill Fields A Note on Sources Revised Bibliography A Note on Nomenclature A Word on Manor Houses Acknowledgements Photographic Acknowledgements Index

About the Author :
In her long career, Gillian Tindall has written novels (one of which won the Somerset Maugham Award), two biographies, and a large number of short stories for print and radio, but she is now best known for her books of 'micro-history'. Each of these takes a specific place, house or obscure group of people at a past date, and uses this to tell a story of much wider historical meaning. Her Celestine, Voices from a French Village has been particularly acclaimed (and won her an honour from the French government) as has her The House by the Thames, but her first book of this kind was The Fields Beneath, first published in 1977 and in many subsequent editions. The area of London that it covers has been her home now for more than forty years, though she has a similar stake in a village in central France and also a long-term relationship with Bombay/Mumbai. She is married, with a son and grandsons.

Review :
'Superb - An effortless blend of scholarship, sleuthing and imagination - a marvellous way of reading history ...' Financial Times '... fascinating - one of the book's many strengths is that it makes us look freshly at the urban scene.' Philip French, Observer '... a model for future writers ...' V S Pritchett, New Statesman