VCH Explore

Explore England's Past

Villages

The village of Aylesford in the Medway Valley, Kent

The complexity in distinguishing between parishes, both ecclesiastical and civil, vills and townships, means that the term village may be an easier one to deal with as a description of a settlement which included houses and communities of people.

However, the term is sometimes used in a more specialist fashion. Estate villages are 18th and 19th century creations by landowners who rebuilt, sometimes involving moving, villages where they owned all the property in vernacular styles. Good examples are Milton Abbas, Dorset, and Edensor on the Dukes of Devonshire’s Chatsworth estate in Derbyshire, where a variety of pattern book designs ensured that every house had an individual character. Open and close or closed villages were terms invented in the 19th century by the Poor Law Commissioners to denote villages where the land was owned either by a single person or a small group (close), or where the land was fragmented between a number of different owners. Close villages were characterised by neat appearances, public houses (when allowed) named after the squire, and conventionally Church of England, while open villages were more populous, had greater numbers of the poor, nonconformist chapels, and a greater element of social laxity.

Theme Items

Probate records for 29 Old Basing residents survive for this period comprising 18 wills, 23 inventories, one court paper and two sets of accounts.

This former farmhouse and later factory office was one of the oldest domestic buildings in Norton Fitwarren but was demolished.

Material from 16 testators in this period includes 12 wills and 15 inventories made by three yeomen, five husbandmen, two blacksmiths, a widow, a c

Six wills and two inventories survive for this period, held in the Hampshire Record Office (HRO) and The National Archives (TNA).

Ten wills and 13 inventories survive from these years and include those of prosperous yeomen farmers, one with a flock of 450 sheep.

Testamentary material that has survived from this period includes seven wills and six inventories from two yeoman, a tailor, a gentleman and his wi

Dummer village benefitted from a clean and reliable water supply due to its location on chalk with clear springs and also from the generosity and i

Looking at a modern map there are no signs that Dummer ever had any windmills. By researching 18th and 19th century maps there is evidence of two.

The former iron foundry in Hook run by the Gower family on the London Road, opposite the Old White Hart Inn started production in 1826.

Pages