Trevor Rowley is Deputy Director of the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford University. He is a geographer by training and is an acknowledged national authority on landscape history and village studies. His books include Villages in the Landscape and Norman England. He has a special interest in Shropshire and the Welsh Marches, where he was born.

John Wood is Senior Archaeologist for the Highland Council in Scotland. He has extensive experience of the survey and excavation of deserted villages, and since 1995 has directed an annual field school at the deserted village of Easter Raitts, near Kingussie in Badenoch. He was formerly Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at Bournemouth University.

Villages have been abandoned throughout history, and in every part of the British Isles. Some of them are former towns; others were only ever small hamlets. Many still await discovery. This book explains how villages have become deserted - often the result of disease and shrinking populations - and describes how the archaeologist recovers and interprets the evidence and shows how everyone can become involved in discovering and recording sites. Some good examples of sites worth visiting are included.