Pinner was a rural Middlesex village when the camera came into general use, with a population of little more than a thousand. Since then it has been transformed into a populous suburb of London, though still retaining a village atmosphere and some farming activity. That century and a half of change was well recorded by photographers and the author skilfully uses a superb selection of their surviving images to illustrate this very readable account of Pinner's past.

Grand houses, improved for wealthy owners and surrounded by fine grounds, which, having outlived their usefulness, were demolished to make way for brick cottages for ordinary people, arriving by train from London, and for shops needed to supply the steadily growing population, all are recorded by the camera in evocative scenes of change.

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