Railways in the Landscape by Gordon Biddle, £25

By 1900, beyond the Scottish Highlands, very few places in Britain were more than five miles from a railway station. The rapid expansion of the network had cut swathes across otherwise untouched landscape “slash(ing) like a knife through the delicate tissue of settled rural civilisation” and had permanently altered street patterns and brought ever increasing industrialisation to towns and cities. Coastal areas didn't escape with railways either running along them altering tidal patterns, flows and sandbanks or running to them creating ports and seaside holiday resorts. Additionally, there are the places that the railway itself created around important stations or junctions such as Tebay, where the terraces are built of red brick or stone depending on which rail company owned them.

In this fascinating new book, local author and vice-president of the Railway and Canal Historical Society, Gordon Biddle, explores the influences of the railway networks on both landscape and place and shows how the physical changes to towns, countryside and coast are still visible today.

CAROLINE REECE

WATERSTONES KENDAL