Arcadia for All

From Canvey Island to Jaywick Sands, from Peacehaven to Pitsea; in the first 40 years of last century, thousands of English families made their own place in the sun, without benefit of councils, planners, architects, building societies, or even builders. Were they, as many planners and environmentalists suggested, making rural slums and seaside eyesores, or were they providing a unique example of unaided self-build housing, with lessons for us all today? Here Dennis Hardy and Colin Ward uncover the history of the 'plotlands' of South-East England, telling the fascinating detail of the places people built for themselves on the coast and in the country, and of what happened to them since, drawing parallels with similar developments in other parts of the world.