Read Online The English Village Explained: Britain’s Living History by Trevor Yorke - Free Book Online
Authors: Trevor Yorke
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more influential.
The lord of the manor could still be a major aristocrat, a gentleman or a squire although by the mid 19thcentury, estates were increasingly being purchased by successful industrialists and capitalists. Some were absent from what may have been just one of many estates they owned while others took an active interest in their agricultural and industrial development. Most, though, enjoyed hunting and, from the late 19th century, shooting, too. This would have required a gamekeeper responsible for the control, protection and breeding of the game animals and birds and a huntsman to look after the foxhounds while the Master of the Hunt, who may have been the lord himself, had overall control of the pack. Other members of staff on a Victorian estate included gardeners, coachmen, butlers, maids and cooks while the tenant farmers would employ labourers who made up a shrinking proportion of the village population. The gentry’s lavish lifestyle and estate farms still provided most of the employment in the dependent settlement.
FIG 5.9 LITTLEWICK GREEN, BERKS: This small church built in the late 19th century is typical of many erected in new and existing parishes to serve neglected congregations and remote areas .
This is the age when the familiar village trades became full-time occupations, whereas previously many of these roles had been unpaid or combined with other work. The local vicar, rector or minister would have been among the most important individuals, along with the main farmers, while the schoolmasters or mistresses, parish clerks, constables and doctors were just below them on the village social ladder. Then there were the various tradesmen like blacksmiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, builders, butchers, bakers, grocers, tailors, cobblers, tanners, millers and publicans. If there was a local industry, then there could be iron workers, miners, quarrymen, brickmakers and masons. The transport of their goods would necessitate a stationmaster, signalman, and workers on the railways, a gatekeeper, surveyor and road men on the turnpikes, while on the canals there were wharfingers, lock-keepers, lengthsmen and boatmen.
The 20th century saw the decline and extinction of so many of the above roles from the landlord down to the humble labourer. Those that have survived have adapted to the changing times, while other craftsmen produce goods for tourists rather than villagers. Farmers have diversified by offering bed and breakfast, selling off barns for conversion and turning over land for camping, fishing lakes and other leisure activities. Old cottages have been renovated and extended, schools and chapels fitted out with domestic trappings, attracting commuters and the retired from towns and cities. Most villages in the early 21st century are dominated for the first time by the middle classes, filling the gaps vacated by labourers and tradesmen.
This brief journey through the past has shown how many villages were formed, developed and declined. Although we consider the changes in the past century to have been devastating to most rural communities these major shifts in the social and physical structure of villages have happened many times before. Deserted settlements, ridges and furrows and old market places are just a few of the remains today which show where this has occurred. Although romanticimages have crystallised what we regard as the traditional English village in our minds, the main reason for their survival over the past millennium is the way they have adapted to changes in agriculture, transport and industry, as many are again doing now as waves of urbanites alter the social and physical aspects of established communities. In the following section we will look in detail at the elements you can see in and around a village today and those less obvious features which show where changes have been made in the past.
FIG 5.10 EXEMPLAR VILLAGE c.2000: Our imaginary village has now completed its journey up to
The lord of the manor could still be a major aristocrat, a gentleman or a squire although by the mid 19thcentury, estates were increasingly being purchased by successful industrialists and capitalists. Some were absent from what may have been just one of many estates they owned while others took an active interest in their agricultural and industrial development. Most, though, enjoyed hunting and, from the late 19th century, shooting, too. This would have required a gamekeeper responsible for the control, protection and breeding of the game animals and birds and a huntsman to look after the foxhounds while the Master of the Hunt, who may have been the lord himself, had overall control of the pack. Other members of staff on a Victorian estate included gardeners, coachmen, butlers, maids and cooks while the tenant farmers would employ labourers who made up a shrinking proportion of the village population. The gentry’s lavish lifestyle and estate farms still provided most of the employment in the dependent settlement.
FIG 5.9 LITTLEWICK GREEN, BERKS: This small church built in the late 19th century is typical of many erected in new and existing parishes to serve neglected congregations and remote areas .
This is the age when the familiar village trades became full-time occupations, whereas previously many of these roles had been unpaid or combined with other work. The local vicar, rector or minister would have been among the most important individuals, along with the main farmers, while the schoolmasters or mistresses, parish clerks, constables and doctors were just below them on the village social ladder. Then there were the various tradesmen like blacksmiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, builders, butchers, bakers, grocers, tailors, cobblers, tanners, millers and publicans. If there was a local industry, then there could be iron workers, miners, quarrymen, brickmakers and masons. The transport of their goods would necessitate a stationmaster, signalman, and workers on the railways, a gatekeeper, surveyor and road men on the turnpikes, while on the canals there were wharfingers, lock-keepers, lengthsmen and boatmen.
The 20th century saw the decline and extinction of so many of the above roles from the landlord down to the humble labourer. Those that have survived have adapted to the changing times, while other craftsmen produce goods for tourists rather than villagers. Farmers have diversified by offering bed and breakfast, selling off barns for conversion and turning over land for camping, fishing lakes and other leisure activities. Old cottages have been renovated and extended, schools and chapels fitted out with domestic trappings, attracting commuters and the retired from towns and cities. Most villages in the early 21st century are dominated for the first time by the middle classes, filling the gaps vacated by labourers and tradesmen.
This brief journey through the past has shown how many villages were formed, developed and declined. Although we consider the changes in the past century to have been devastating to most rural communities these major shifts in the social and physical structure of villages have happened many times before. Deserted settlements, ridges and furrows and old market places are just a few of the remains today which show where this has occurred. Although romanticimages have crystallised what we regard as the traditional English village in our minds, the main reason for their survival over the past millennium is the way they have adapted to changes in agriculture, transport and industry, as many are again doing now as waves of urbanites alter the social and physical aspects of established communities. In the following section we will look in detail at the elements you can see in and around a village today and those less obvious features which show where changes have been made in the past.
FIG 5.10 EXEMPLAR VILLAGE c.2000: Our imaginary village has now completed its journey up to
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