Paperback: Villages of Vision, by Gillian Darley

Five Leaves

From Saltaire to Bournville, Hampstead Garden Suburb to Portmeirion, Britain has more than 400 communities planned from scratch to fulfil a cultural mission or appease a capitalist conscience. This delightful and revealing book, now updated, tells the bizarre history of these "strange Utopias" from New Lanark to Poundbury, and supplies a county-by-county guide. On every page, comic delusion vies with inspiring idealism.