MARK Twain once described rural England as "grass, and trees and shrubs, and roads, and hedges, and gardens, and houses, and vines and churches, and castles and here and there a ruin - and over it all a mellow dream haze of history".

Rodney Legg captures this ideal in the book Dorset Villages: Photographic Memories.

But he also goes beyond drawing out the charm and beauty of Dorset villages to discover what he calls quintessential Dorset.

The book shows villages that seem to have grown out of the landscape with building materials gathered from the surroundings.

Many photographs feature the idyllic stereotype of rural life, the thatched roof, which still remains a common feature of Dorset villages.

The "photographic memories" draw heavily on the archives founded by Francis Frith, a Victorian pioneer businessman who spotted an opportunity to create a new business as a publisher of photographs.

His outstanding collection of photographs is joined with Rodney Legg's leading historical knowledge of the area, which guides us through these snapshots of village life.

The photograph of Corfe Castle Village encapsulates centuries of history from the castle ruin to the 12th-century Greyhound Hotel, reminiscent of the inns in Thomas Hardy novels, to the 1950s Austin parked outside.

There is evidence of the highest rainfall recorded in Britain in July 1955 as Upwey villagers navigate summertime flash floods in a horse-drawn carriage.

But I find most fascinating the 1904 photograph of Cove Cottage in West Lulworth. A lady pushes a Victorian pram along a clean tranquil road.

The book provides a unique and detailed portrait of Dorset villages.

Dorset Villages: Photographic Memories by Rodney Legg (Francis Frith Publications, £11.99).