The cottages and the village life of rural England . and coins provein many cases the continuity of the village community. TheSaxon invaders found many of the villages in existence when theycame. As colonists they would not be so foolish as to makefresh clearings in the forests and found new settlements when theyhad lands already farmed and tilled; and however much theyavoided the walled towns of Roman Britain, they certainly hadno such antipathy to the occupation of its villas and ruralvillages. Most modern villages have a street—not what a townsmanknows by that name, a fine thoroughfare with
The cottages and the village life of rural England . and coins provein many cases the continuity of the village community. TheSaxon invaders found many of the villages in existence when theycame. As colonists they would not be so foolish as to makefresh clearings in the forests and found new settlements when theyhad lands already farmed and tilled; and however much theyavoided the walled towns of Roman Britain, they certainly hadno such antipathy to the occupation of its villas and ruralvillages. Most modern villages have a street—not what a townsmanknows by that name, a fine thoroughfare with grand shops andhouses on each side, but a simple village road connecting thecottages with the church and manor-house. We have a streetin my little village of Barkham leading from the manor to thechurch, with a farm on one side and a dozen scattered cottageson the other. The name is Roman. It is the old strata via, orpaved way, and connects the modern village with its old-timeprogenitor. The planning of the village accords with the old lines. 10. LIFE OF RURAL ENGLAND I have often sketched the plan of an ideal village in my books, andthat which I set forth in my earliest book on the subject, entitled English Villages, * perhaps explains best its component is an ideal village, not an actual photograph, a composite sketchthat reproduces most of the elements of which an ordinary village iscomposed. There is the church and manor-house side by side andthe old rectory. The church was the centre of the old village life,religious, secular and social. f The manor-house was the residenceof the lord of the manor or his bailiff, and the land around it was indemesne, , it belonged to the lord for his own use,t and so dis-tinguished from the land occupied by his tenants, who were obligedto do some services for their lord, such as ploughing or harvestingon the demesne land. A manor was land granted by the kingto some baron or gentleman as an inheritance for him and hisheirs, wi
Size: 1362px × 1835px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectcottage, bookyear1912
