The English Village History and Traditions

A charming guide to the story of the English village, celebrating this beloved heart of the countryside. The village remains a quintessential and much-loved treasure that is often representative of England. This rural idyll has inspired generations of great poets, novelists, and artists including the likes of Constable, Hardy, and Wordsworth. The English Village champions all that is unique and loved about a typical village—the pub, the green, the school, the church, the pond, the local shop, and more—as well as exploring how the village has changed over the centuries, and how it has adjusted to modern-day life. A fascinating compendium of interesting details, facts, customs, and lore, this is an unabashed toast to the English village, as well as a record of a disappearing world.

Martin Wainwright has been the Northern Editor of the Guardian for 16 years and broadcasts regularly on television and radio. He co-wrote The Which? Guide to Yorkshire and the Peak District and is the author of True North: In Praise of England's Better Half and a guide to the Coast to Coast Walk, as well as A Gleaming Landscape: A Hundred Years of The Guardian's Country Diary.