Abroad in Britain

October. 29,1990

Rating：

8.2

Genre：

Documentary

Keywords：

Architecture

Trailer Synopsis

Series in which Jonathan Meades considers unusual homes or architecture around Britain.

Seasons & Episode

Seasons 1 : 1990

5 Episode

Episode 1 - Severn Heaven

October. 29,1990

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.

Episode 2 - Right is Wrong

November. 05,1990

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.

Episode 3 - House Ahoy

November. 12,1990

Meades investigates unusual houses, houseboats and lifestyles of people on the Solent.

Episode 4 - Brick and Mortars

November. 26,1990

Jonathan Meades considers the style of army and military buildings and architectural styles.

Episode 5 - In Search of Bohemia

December. 03,1990

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.

Similar titles

The World's Most Extraordinary Homes

Award-winning architect Piers Taylor and actress and property enthusiast Caroline Quentin explore extraordinary homes built in mountain, forest, coast and underground locations around the world.

See Detail

The World's Most Extraordinary Homes 2017

Britbox

Grand Designs

British television series which features unusual and often elaborate architectural homebuilding projects.

Watch on

Grand Designs 1999

Bunkers Brutalism and Bloodymindedness

Two-part documentary in which Jonathan Meades makes the case for 20th-century concrete Brutalist architecture in an homage to a style that he sees a brave, bold and bloodyminded. Tracing its precursors to the once-hated Victorian edifices described as Modern Gothic and before that to the unapologetic baroque visions created by John Vanbrugh, as well as the martial architecture of World War II, Meades celebrates the emergence of the Brutalist spirit in his usual provocative and incisive style. Never pulling his punches, Meades praises a moment in architecture he considers sublime and decries its detractors.

See Detail

Bunkers Brutalism and Bloodymindedness 2014