Cities in embryo

And what Kington made me think of was the evolution of cities. Kington, like our nearest town Presteigne, is an old town with modern elements. Kington I think is medieval - lots of narrow sunny alleyways and bulging old wooden buildings - which was modernised in the Georgian era - 1700 - 1850, say - by slapping classical facades on medieval townhouses. And then the modernisation stopped, so although there are twentieth century houses and new buildings, the town centre feels stopped in time. This is its appeal to visitors, of course, especially Presteigne which is much quieter than Kington.

This north Herefordshire area is famous for the 'black and white villages', where the modernisation or rejuventation of the villages stopped even longer ago. Somewhere like Pembridge is essentially a whole town built between 1350 and 1600 with newer infills. The Georgians/Victorians didn't modernise it as by then it was no longer important, so these beautiful villages look much as they did five or six centuries ago. It occurred to me that not only villages looked like this, so that these places are 'cities in embryo'; Liverpool looked like this, so did Manchester, so did London, before streets were widened and straightened and old houses demolished for newer ones. These small towns show an urban progression stopped at some point, in the Middle Ages in the case of Pembridge, the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century in the case of Kington and Presteigne. Had they stayed important they would have grown, their medieval buildings would have become Georgianised then demolished or Victorianised and only odd survivors would still be around. Fossilised towns, cities in embryo...