Abroad in Britain (1990)
Series in which Jonathan Meades considers unusual homes or architecture around Britain.
Seasons & Episode
Just north of Bewdley in Worcestershire, beside the Severn Valley Railway, is the largest surviving interwars 'plotland' settlement in Britain. This is a village of dwellings built by their owners from improvised materials: old railway carriages, chicken coops, the fuselages of gliders etc. Decried as an instant slum and opposed by planning authorities it is today regarded as a valuable manifestation of working class history.
Meades investigates a new age community beside a Scottish air base, a furniture factory in a Dorset wood, and an experimental school in East Grinstead, all of which are geometrically linked by buildings that shun the orthodoxy of the right angle.
Meades investigates unusual houses, houseboats and lifestyles of people on the Solent.
Jonathan Meades considers the style of army and military buildings and architectural styles.
There are a surprising number of places in Britain called Bohemia. Even more surprising is the fact that two of them - in Hastings and the New Forest - have connections to the artistic bohemia of such painters as Augustus John, two of whose studios demonstrate how much domestic design would take from this type of building. Features a red Lada that's a mobile tip.
