Planned villages

Lords had enormous power over the lives of their villeins. As we have seen, they could move villages or even close them down altogether for pasture. In some cases, they even planned the layout of their villages. Some historians believe that in the period between 1070 and the end of the 13th century, many villages in England were planned. It is suspected that a growth in population and perhaps new ownership of land had led to the building of new settlements and the field system being altered to suit the new villages. What had previously been a pattern of hamlets and in-fields was deliberately changed to a system of village and common arable land.

Sometimes villages were built from scratch, sometimes an existing village was redeveloped or expanded. There is not much documentary evidence to trace the origins of planned medieval villages, and the few examples we have do not come from Herefordshire. One example from Northumberland is the old village of West Thirston, which was devastated by Scottish raiding in 1324 and was rebuilt in the 1330s. Part of the original village was moved to create the new village of East Thirston to make the journey to and from the scattered field strips shorter.

Monasteries often kept better records than secular lords. There are several examples of village relocations connected to the Cistercian Order of monks. In the cases of East Witton in Wensleydale and New Byland on the North York Moors, it was more convenient for the Cistercians to relocate the villages. (Richard Muir, The Villages of England, Thames and Hudson, 1992)

Are planned, moved and expanded villages examples of medieval property development? Was the lord of the manor hoping to attract new free tenants who would add to his rental income?

Little research on or excavation of medieval villages has taken place in Herefordshire, however there is evidence of village planning in other parts of England. In Milburn in Cumbria, for example, the medieval village was laid out to a regular pattern. Each house plot has a narrow frontage to the village green and a long yard to the rear.

[Original author: Toria Forsyth-Moser, 2002]