For those who come across land owners who have made it impossible to use a perfectly Legitimate footpath then the first thing is to contact your local council department which over sees public rights of way etc . To be annoyed and remain quiet or think someone else will report it is not good enough. Keep footpaths open by using them and reporting obstructions it only costs you your time.
What about places people have walked and used for at least 40 years, but are not on the public right of way maps? The land owner has closed them recently.
@@SciFiFemale happened where I am. Field used for walking for a number of years. Then planning position applied for lots of housing. This was turned down. Out of spite, owner put a bull with sheep in it. Now unusable. Yes owners can do what they want but means less open land to enjoy. Or, owner 'keeps' the footpath open but makes it impossible to use by placing big styles in the way.
Wonderful response! I do it all the time! I like to also revisit the areas & tell the landowners it was me who got it reopened!! (When they question why I'm walking there)!!
Quite right. Photographic evidence always helps, and ask for your rights of way officer. If you get stuck, the Ramblers' association are usually keen to help and advise. If there was no right of way, then it's tough, there's no right of way. However removing or covering up rights of way signs, or putting misleading or false 'no right of way' signage falls under the RoW officer's remit.
Very well done once more. I found the link between present-day land owners shutting off public right-of-way paths and medieval land owners kicking tenents from their lands so they could keep more sheep there, quite ironic. A rich owner may thus destroy a community amenity or, indeed, the community itself. Perhaps a deeper dive into enclosures, new land ownership laws and eviction of tenants would be fruitful?
To all the private land owners who put up signs discouraging people from using the legal, public rights of way through their land... jeff off! It's scummy behaviour.
@@Simon_Nonymous People should have the right for small gardens yes. Anything larger or commercial maybe a compromise. For being able to keep people from wondering over the land hand it over to the local authority and lease it back. After all it was stolen in the first place.
I just bought two "No Trespassing" signs for 2 acres and cabin bordering a national forest. You can go in the NF all you want. But stay off my property if I say to do so. The boundary is well marked and visible (no fence). The law is on my side and you have no rights to it whatsoever. Different cultures have different rules and they are as serious as you take yours. So have fun! I enjoyed hill walking in the UK
I grew up in Evenley (near Astwick). My Dad was a keen member of the Bicester Hash House Harriers and he spent many an hour working out trails for the next run and poring over OS maps. That got him interested in Astwick and the history of it. He would have loved this video, sadly no longer with us. 'On On Silver fox' (his Hash Handle).
The moated area inside of the wood reminded me so much of Penhallam in North Cornwall which has been excavated and is now very visible and was a fortified manor house. Good images on Google Lovely filming and excellent research. Really enjoyed it as always.
Great video, in addition to plague, I thought many villages were 'abandoned' when landowners got more value from sheep than people. Shame some habits haven't changed!
Nothing in the Netherlands is ever abandoned for long. Every inch of this tiny land is always accounted for. So I'm glad I can enjoy such hidden secrets on your channel!
If you read some of Maurice Beresford's books ("The Lost Villages of England", for example) he confirms that the plague isn't the primary cause of desertion of villages in medieval times - it was landowners and pasturage primarily. It was cheaper to have a lot of sheep and employ one shepherd than to employ a large number of villein landworkers, particularly when wool was more profitable than crops. Tilgarsley is an interesting one, as it is one of the few villages that was wiped out entirely by the plague (Tusmore, which you mention, is another). Many historians have debated where Tilgarsley lies, but it hasn't been definitively tracked down, as far as I'm aware.
Whilst the Black Death did destroy the economic viability of many places the shift to raising sheep for their fleeces did for many many more. And unlike the Scottish versions it all took place long before a large number of people were literate.
@@pwhitewick between the famines of 1315 to 1317 and the arrival of the Black Death there was a gradual shift away from crop farming to sheep farming. This was coupled to another couple of trends: the increasing number of lords of the manors who were farming out their demesnes and the growth in the proportion of villagers who did no feudal services in the fields of the lord of the manor (ie a rise in the number of freemen and a fallin the number of villeins). After the Black Death this meant that there were fewer people who had to harvest the lord of the manor's crops for free making it more expensive to run the manor even taking the labour controls imposed in 1351. Sheep, on the other hand need less labour to rear than crops and the absentee lords of the manor preferred the money without the bother of the feudal obligations so got rid of their villains for sheep.
@@pwhitewick I've been looking into the sheep issue. In 1194 there were about 6 million sheep from which 50 000 sacks of wool were collected, mainly for export. By 1315 there were about 10 million sheep. During the reign of Edward I London alone exported 14,500 sacks of wool a year. Most if this wool went to Flanders. In 1390 an Italian merchant, Francisco Balducci Pegolotti listed 185 monasteries of which 66 were held by the Cistercians. Fountains Abbey produced the most wool with74 sacks, but their abbey at Tintern and Dore got £18 13s and 4d for each sack of wool. England's nobles were not slow to copy the monasteries in switching to sheep farming. The Duchy of Lancaster had 2 sheep ranges in Yorkshire, managed from Pontefract and Pickering, and other in the Derbyshire Peak District. After the Black Death the cost of labour was much higher than before (think of today's inflation after Covid as an equivalent) and the lords of manors across the country switched from keeping peasants to keeping sheep.
Enjoyed that, Thanks1 I also enjoy Jack Hargreaves and he did a similar description of the loss of local villages. As happened in Scotland with the clearing of the Highlands, the same happened earlier in England with the Black Death which led to a severe loss of labour and the demand for wool and textiles caused the land owners to drive off or relocate whole villages to make sheep farming more profitable.
Another interesting video today. A real walk “back in time”. Appreciate your time and labour in these videos. Glad to see you both today. Cheers mates!! ❤❤😊😊
I'm relieved ..... Rebecca has found the come out of the bush sign at last!! I guess there are no remains of the villages because they weren't built of stone? Well worth a visit to St Huberts at Idsworth, its known as the church in the field. It has similar style paintings on the walls too ..... and no village nearby!! Great video, well done!!
Those ancient churches and chapels are a delight! They remind me of M.R. James stories like "The Uncommon Prayer-Book" and "A Neighbour's Landmark". Good to see Rebecca again, however briefly.
I find the ordinance survey mapping app gives me great confidence in using paths that are discouraged - the red arrow giving me a clear position and removing doubt (I’m lousy with a map). I find it incredible how in one walk you can go from a landowner who is accommodating and helpful to another who treats you like a trespasser, though presumably still taking whatever subsidies are available!
Very interesting video again. I suppose the plague/black death or however they call it seems to be the biggest destroyer of villages thrughout Europe. Though the 30 year's war left a lot of abandoned villages in Germany too. I love those lonely churches in the countryside. I wish I could visit England one day and see this all for myself. PS: she's alive! 🤣
I grew up near Caus Castle, which is a great example of a lost settlement on the English-Welsh border in Shropshire. Would be a good place for one of your videos actually- could walk along Offa's Dyke before moving around Long Mountain into Caus. There are some other interesting landmarks nearby like an old drover's mark (Bromlow callow). It began as a Norman motte and bailey in the dangerous Welsh marches, midway between Shrewsbury and Montgomery. The settlement was a full town by the mid medieval period, with a market charter, status as a borough, and several hundred people living within the walls. The original wooden defenses had been fully upgraded to stone, so this was a substantial investment. By the English Civil War, Caus was a ruin with a single family living within the walls. It was held by a token Royalist garrison, but apparently had been neglected for decades by the lords of the manor. It is probably this neglect that killed the community. The castle was "made safe" following the war, and today little of the stonework remains. The earthworks are fairly well preserved and you can walk through the copse on the hill today. A single farm is present on the edge of the site. Many of the local buildings were constructed with stone pilfered from the ruined castle in the years following the civil war, including the house I grew up in (built around 1650). There are a few pieces of well-cut stone in the oldest section which were clearly nabbed from a different building!
Great stuff, Paul. There’s two main reasons why villages became abandoned in lowland Britain in the Middle Ages and later - plague and pestilence (that’s one 😜) and landowners (often because the villages spoiled their view!) The Black Death should not just be taken as 1348; waves of it continued for the next 150 years.
Albury in Surrey (not to be confused with the one in Oxfordshire) is a great example of the latter. The whole village was moved with the exception of the church and a new village established with a new church a a few miles west.
@@mothmagic1 Yes but the IFR is only 10x of seasonal flu (which is a horrible infection in its own right). If we get something with an IFR of 50% (50x Covid) then things get wonderfully interesting.
As you mentioned the Black Death I really think you should visit "The Village of the Damned " Eyam in Derbyshire. You will have just missed "The Burning of the Rats" on bonfire night or there abouts.
I'm not totally convinced that sign was anything more than asking people to stop wandering through the farmyard from the way it was placed, but it seems to be a bit of a hobby horse for you Paul.
Agreed, I guess the point here is that it's not clear. There was no obvious route and this sign very much gave the impression there was now no way through. Genuinely, we turned around.
Nice one. Obviously you couldn't have covered every abandoned village in big county like Oxfordshire. We have walked through Nether Chalford near Chipping Norton. Shifford near us also has an isolated church. Despite working in Eynsham for a number of years, I have only recently heard of Tilgarsley.
What translates as old buildings or old dwellings. Le bold? Les boules? Bouelles? can't make out exactly what you're saying and can't find that term googling it. You show the town of Bowles which may come from a Saxon Boles (for which some possible roots are Boll (a steward), 'le Bole' (the bull) or 'les Bolles' (from an area called The Bolles)) or a Viking named Bolla, a Norman named Busli or Builli, or possibly from a Scot named Boal or Boyle who may have descended from a Norman named Boelles or famous Norman named de Boules (arrived c1200) or from a Celt named Ó Baoighill (O'Boyle). But I can't find your 'old buildings' reference.
A really fascinating subject Paul, which must have taken up a lot of research, walking, and travelling time. Well done. Nice unexpected appearance by Rebecca at the end, whose shadowy presence I notice slips through the frame at 1:39!
As soon as this video started I thought of the black death, A bit out of your jurisdiction and like you at your age tried and still do with Google find things out, But some years ago my favourite park museum had a refit and it was revealed it was a priory a bit obvious it being Priory Park originally home of the Cluniac order, We have Cluny Square a children's playground and jokingly mentioned building on it, Apparently it was a mass burial site for the Black death which is spore and can lay dormant for centuries and can easily kill to day's local population
There are plenty of remains of medieval villages here in Lincolnshire. It is said that whilst the black death reduce the population it was the movement of the population away from these villages to work for larger land owners who needed them close at hand to work for them.
Really love your videos Paul (& Rebecca). Are you able to "cross reference" your work and that of Time Team? I would think you are highlighting several potential sites that a "dig" would add to the pool of archaeological data? Paul, Johannesburg
When I was a kid in 1968 we had a party at school to celebrate our village being 1000 years old and that was just our recorded history. When you grow up in the UK you are surrounded by ancient churches and castles, centuries of history both remembered and forgotten. I grew up loving that deep connection to my country and hugely appreciate the work Paul and Rebecca do to bring the past alive for the RU-vid generation, of all ages!
@bobroberts6155 it's similar in the USA but all of the ancient villages and such are Native American. I don't need to explain why there's only a handful of those left.....
Thank you, love the changing/unchanging landscape stories. I also love the fact that all over the UK you can walk into isolated buildings and find images from several hundred years ago, cared for but not needing any protection.
One more comment! You were so close to the abandoned rail line that joined up at Kings Sutton! (See my comments in Geoff's Least Used Kings Sutton video?) Worth checking out!
Wow, you pack a lot of excellent historical knowledge in your vlogs in such a short video. I love watching them as someone who is studying (as an amateur) archaeology and history. There is another deserted village that is on the Oxfordshire, Warwickshire boarder (not exactly sure which county it’s in but I think now it’s Warwickshire ). Wormleighton Deserted Medieval Village is viewable from the Oxford canal, that I have been navigating for 20 yrs, and the earthworks are interesting and very prominent on the landscape.
Near Tusmore & Astwick (to the NE) you have a farm called Wilisden (woolisden) & there is another village there (just north of 'eath - use drops ure h's in N'or Oxfordshire). I can't remember if it was the enclosure act or death of the wool trade that closed it. A touch further to the N you have Shelswell, and a village was cleared to gentrify the landscape for the big 'ouse. The estate farm house has the remains of a moat around it. Of course Fringford, Heath & Tusmore is Flora Thompson country, with Lark Rise to Candleford By Bicester you've got Wretwick which was a plague village & Alchester a Roman Town - Bi-Cester apparently two camps?? At one stage the area was the border with the Danelaw
Interesting how many of these are nearby ‘fords’ over the river Isis as with oxen-ford. I wonder if the Black Death meant people and buildings clustered around fewer fords/ crossings with more importance
I wonder if the villages abandoned due to the plague, were just left empty as residents died, if they were deliberately "evacuated" with things left more or less intact, or if they were deliberately burned down / demolished. I guess whatever the combination of events, they were clearly not seen as nice places to live again.
If that Roman mosaic was in its original position, and not at risk of vandalism or destruction, then removing to Cirencester museum was a travesty. The siting of the church on top of a structure at least a 1000 years older would not have been an accident. And like the evidence of Frocester would be a vital piece of the jigsaw to understand continuity of occupation from the Iron Age, through Roman and Early Medieval to the late Medieval before it was abandoned. Sites such as these are precious as the evidence of earlier occupation has not been destroyed by later development.
The lost villages of Dorset (there are dozens) were because previously wooded areas were cleared and were more suitable for farming than the chalk uplands where the villages had been.
Fab video. It's great to know that there's so much to see and find in the English countryside. A lot of mystery and a lot to learn too. That church is a gem!
Paul, thanks for this insight into the English hinterland and "lost" villages. On a trip to Ireland, I was stunned to come across a small Norman chapel in the middle of nowhere, with a sign that said, "Norman Chapel 1200AD", no gates, no locks. and no signs saying "Do Not Touch" just sitting there waiting for people to rediscover it. Here in the USA, the only thing that is nearly that old are from the original people living in North America and most of what they left behind was very ephemeral. Only things like "Mounds" and Cliff dwellings and the ruins of the Anstazi are left to investigate, though the oral traditions do tell compelling stories.
GREAT have you ever considered putting out a book of your travels. The painted walls was good but you didn't really show them long enough so I could appreciate them.. Many thanks
These videos make me jealous in numerous ways. For one, it's so cool that y'all can just wander across people's feilds and farms without worry. I know its because you don't have much public land and that landowners are still assholes about it sometimes, but it's still really cool. I'm also jealous that you can just personally investigate your history like that. We don't have anywhere near as much to see here, and the history that goes back more than a couple hundred years is... Uncomfortably complicated
As you get more towards the North and York, some of the abandoned villages (especially those with no evidence of a chapel/church and little-to-no historical record) might actually have been Jewish communities. Up until Kind Edward I expelled Jews from England there were quite a few notable, prosperous villages around the country. Of course Jews were also largely purged from the record and property confiscated at this point too. The largest amount of purges happened between 1200-1350; not coincidentally coinciding with the black death (as Jews were often blamed for causing or spreading it.) In-hiding and discovered communities of Jews continued to be expelled from England (and then Wales) until the 1650s.
A new "old" film of the Bridport branch line when still in operation in early 1975 has just appeared on youtube. I just thought you might find it interesting.
Wiþig would still be pronounced the same as modern withy. The Latin alphabet had no /j/ yet, and historic g was pronounced like modern y in this context, as it does in modern Greek. -ig was later written -ii, then -i and finally for clarity -y, but pronunciation remains -ij.
And as if by magic...there was the actual video! HOORAY, really interesting and makes you think about all those places still to be discovered. Thank you, as ever.
As an American it’s absolutely wild to me that there is just a building in the middle of a giant field, completely abandoned, with a 700 year old painting in it. Just there. Ignored. For anyone to walk up and see or touch or vandalize or anything
Technically speaking the sign at Bowles Farm is kinda correct. Yes, a bridleway runs to the left and right from that point and a path bisects the field to the east (running roughly NE), but straight ahead towards the large white barn (ie the other side of the sign) is not a public right of way. The fence around the field should be moved or have access gates, as it's blocking the bridleway, but the sign, though vague, is arguably correct.
Jack Hargreaves thought that the Black Death didn't so much depopulate smaller settlements particularly, it cut right through all communities. Once the plague finally burned out, society and economics had changed. Labour was in short supply, so became more valuable. Restrictions on mobility relaxed, so people could relocate. Typically, lower lying level land was more productive and valuable than higher elevations and slopes. People farmed less productive, or even marginal land because the best land was already occupied. Some of the owners of the best lands were gone, others needed labourers to replace the attrition in their workforce. Both factors pulled people from less productive communities. Plague did not destroy these settlements, better options enticed them to leave.
I enjoy watching your videos, but you did over egg St Oswald’s being in the middle of nowhere. Swinbrook is only several hundred metres away and Burford is less than 2 miles away, as is Asthall.
Great. Thanks a lot. There are so many moated sites in central England and I find them very evocative. Wheatfield church is interesting, having arched windows and a Venetian window at its West end ... 17th century?
Even though the small church was sealed up if you ask permission, you can actually arrange for christenings and other services to be conducted. Apparently, of course the site does not have any water or electricity, and apparently repairs are being done to improve the condition of the building.
What is frigtening is the lack of knowledge of how these inhabited sites became... lost and devoid of human life. Bit like today when places of so called learning are removing books on history, so as the denial of the past, becomes..... lost. Did not someone once say, we must learn from the mistakes of the past, so as to not make them in the future. Makes one think.
Great video - makes me want to research what abandoned villages are near me and where I am about to move to - history waiting to be re-discovered. (*_*)
The attitude being taken by land owners seems to reflect that of the ruling elite in the country, small and mean in every respect. A squalid little island, separate in all senses from Europe. They really have killed the goose that laid the golden egg as far as tourism is concerned. It is rapidly becoming a destination to avoid.
So much rich history in Wales and being more sparsely populated, there is so much left and not lost under housing/industry etc. May i recommend the Elan valley and the Cwmystwyth lead mines. Incredible place to drive and so many amazing things to stop off and see. Like travelling through the past.
Where I was born and grew up there were stories about houses being on the site before our house was built. Digging the garden in the spring always brought up bits of broken plates and glass. In the rubbish pile at the far end of the garden was bits of brick and roof tiles. I have wondered for over fifty years what stood on that site before our brand new house was build in 1966.
Fascinating. Especially since I grew up in Witney and I had no idea of these places until I saw this. Well done. (PS. Always enjoy seeing Rebecca in front of the camera too)
