The Wansdyke & District Forums

Forgive an old woman a sad thought. We spend our time on this board chasing villages that died three hundred year ago, the plague ones, the enclosure ones, wondering how a place just stops. And I look out at our own green with three houses dark and the firm buying up more, and I think, we are watching one go. This is how it happens. Not all at once. A house at a time, quiet, and no one you could point a finger at. In a hundred year somebody will lidar our green and wonder where everybody went.

That is not a sad thought, Nan, it is the truest one on this board in a twelvemonth. Not every deserted village was plague or enclosure. Some simply had the life bought quietly out of them by a party who could afford to wait. We study the old ones. We are, I begin to think, sitting in a new one.

youre not wrong nan, theyve been after my top ground and all. but its money, same as its always been money. rich men buying out poor villages is the oldest story in this county. depressing aint the same as mysterious.