A Journey Through Britain’s Village Utopias

Dreamstreets

From Scotland's New Lanark mills to the Arts and Crafts Cottages of Port Sunlight, a history of one of the most fascinating experiments of Victorian philanthropy - the 'model' village.

This is a fascinating book, a glimpse through the keyhole of homes that turn out to be stages set for a performance.

Intriguing... The descriptions of place, surface and mood are sharp and tangible

A fascinating study of how human life is moulded and shaped by big money. It is…sobering.

A fascinating, fact-rich, and beautifully written book.

An interesting book… Eloquent and well researched… Her visits to the villages are richly descriptive and full of warmth.

Jacqueline Yallop is the author of three novels and a history of Victorian collecting. She has a PhD in nineteenth-century literature and culture, and has worked as a museum curator in Manchester and Sheffield. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Aberystwyth.

Twenty years ago, Jacqueline Yallop was leading guided walks at Nenthead, one of a network of ‘model’ villages which sprang up across Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A life-long fascination was born. 
 
From Scotland’s New Lanark Mills to the Arts and Crafts cottages of Port Sunlight, Yallop visits these utopian experiments to explore their rich histories. Looking at everything from sewage systems to sculpture, chocolate to coal, and free trade to electoral emancipation, this book is a personal exploration of why and how these village utopias came about, what they tell us about the past, and how they still resonate with us today.

Jacqueline Yallop

By turn, poignant, funny, educational and, yes, brutal . . . Yallop's skill lies in blending autobiography with lyrical nature writing.

Quietly devastating . . . Yallop writes with great tenderness about the hogs as housekeepers and gourmands

A delightful and entertaining memoir

A beautifully written and quietly devastating account of raising two young pigs on [Yallop's] smallholding in the south of France

The narrative tension is as tightly coiled as a thriller

Fascinating . . . you certainly have a treat in store

A Year on a Smallholding in South-West France

On her fortieth birthday Jacqueline Yallop built a pig sty in rural south-west France. She and her husband Ed had decided to turn their Aveyron cottage and garden into a small holding. They bought two pigs - Big and Little - to rear and slaughter. The locals were full of advice, and with just a small amount of plastic poles and metallic string and some new Wellington boots, they were off. 
 
They will cultivate the land. They will raise, then kill and eat their pigs. Or so they keep telling themselves. Because the reality is so very different from the romantic dreams of two stubborn English writers . . .

Big Pig, Little Pig

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Jacqueline Yallop

Praise for Big Pig, Little Pig

By turn, poignant, funny, educational and, yes, brutal . . . Yallop's skill lies in blending autobiography with lyrical nature writing.

Quietly devastating . . . Yallop writes with great tenderness about the hogs as housekeepers and gourmands

A delightful and entertaining memoir

By turn, poignant, funny, educational and, yes, brutal . . . Yallop's skill lies in blending autobiography with lyrical nature writing.

Quietly devastating . . . Yallop writes with great tenderness about the hogs as housekeepers and gourmands

A delightful and entertaining memoir

By turn, poignant, funny, educational and, yes, brutal . . . Yallop's skill lies in blending autobiography with lyrical nature writing.

Quietly devastating . . . Yallop writes with great tenderness about the hogs as housekeepers and gourmands

A delightful and entertaining memoir

Books by Jacqueline Yallop

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