PHIL C. with his thoughts on rural history.
The countryside, eh? How did it get to be the way it is? One minute they're moaning about shops and schools closing down: the next, they're complaining about too many commuters moving in. Why does everybody want to commute? How come the quaint villages on all those endless Aga-sagas on telly are nothing like anywhere you actually see? What is it with farmers? Ripping out hedges one minute, posing as Friends of the Earth the next and wanting endless subsidies. Why do we keep seeing estate agents and accountants galloping about pretending to be country squires? Why do those on the left hate them so much? Why are executive homes done up as mock country cottages? Why are rural people looked down on as simple and stupid yokels? How come French villages seem like rough old English villages used to be? How did our countryside get to be beautiful before conservation had ever been heard of? Why is the "right to roam" such a big issue? Why? Why?
Patience, my children. All will be revealed as we gallop at break-neck speed through the history of the countryside.
If we could go back about 3000 years what would we see? Well, the same moist, temperate climate and gentle landscape - a country ripe for rich agricultural development. But already there weren't many trees: in fact fewer than today. The population was small but had little knowledge of maintaining soul fertility. Primitive "slash and burn" agriculture simply meant moving on when the land was exhausted. So even from very early times the countryside wasn't natural but man-made.
Leaping forward to 1066, we find this rich land being fought over. The winner was William the Bastard, known to us as the Conqueror. He took over an overwhelmingly rural country with perhaps two million people. He didn't invent the "feudal" system of tenants owing allegiance to their lord - it was already in place - but soon all the lords were French and the lower orders English. A social rigidity had been introduced to the class system, whose echoes live with us to this day. England never developed the class of independent small peasant farmers that are seen in some other countries. The countryside was to remain under the control of the landed gentry who remained wealthy, powerful and influential in the life of the nation.
Duke William was "the Bastard" not just because he was ... er ... a bit of a bastard. Although his father was the Duke of Normandy his mother was the daughter of a humble tanner. In the new order he created, no-one was going to be able to copy that sort of example.
In the Middle Ages life for the average peasant was a bleak struggle for subsistence - as it has always been - but the country prospered. Monastic orders turned swamp and wilderness into productive land. Those areas exporting wool to the continent showed their wealth by building amazing churches. But much of it wasn't a pretty countryside. As population grew, the heavy ox-drawn plough allowed cultivation in heavy clay areas but was too expensive for any one peasant to maintain - so arable farming became increasingly semi-communal on a bleak, hedgeless terrain of strips and common pasture.
We like to think our villages are in the Domesday Book. Well, perhaps the names are but they probably weren't villages in the modern sense, just a scatter of farmsteads and hovels. It was communal farming that gradually produced the English village as we understand it today - with the whole village operating rather like one giant farm. Many such villages were actually laid out to a plan in the twelfth century - with a village green not for recreation but to bring the valuable animals into at night. In parts of, say, Italy, you won't see English-style villages at all - just townships in an otherwise empty landscape.
Of course the humblest peasants had to subsist so hovels had a plot of land to grow food. We see the beginnings of the cottage garden, aided by fertile soil and temperate climate. This hasn't happened in parts of Italy, France, Germany etc. where villages remain tightly packed. Small peasant farmers don't need a garden - they've got a farm.
Moving swiftly on, religion takes a hand. The English version of the Protestant Reformation was very strange indeed and had huge consequences for the countryside. Henry VIII created the Church of England as a convenience so he could get divorced. He dissolved the fabulously wealthy Roman Catholic monasteries and sold them off cheap to his supporters. And who were they? Well, the term "yuppies" hadn't been invented but you get the idea. A new get-rich-quick, Protestant rural aristocracy was born (or re-invented itself). As the danger of backsliding into Catholicism (and losing their new lands) passed they no longer needed to be dourly puritannical, but they remained low-brow. The tradition of an uncultured landed gentry having tight control over the land and the nation was perpetuated.
I wouldn't want to exaggerate - rural England has produced some of our greatest talents - but intellectual and artistic pursuits have never been essential to the culture of the rural gentry. For example, remote, backward England had rivalled sophisticated Italy as a centre of music. Now music began to die for want of patronage by church or social elite. England didn't produce a single composer of international repute for 200 years.
The Church of England was wonderfully self-supporting. The right to appoint local clergy was in the hands of the rural landowners, where it has remained into modern times. This was no minor perk. The local vicar had the income from tithes and glebe lands. So of course the rural gentry appointed themselves or their relatives (hence the grand rectories in so many villages). This maintained their loyalty to the Church and made them spiritual as well as economic and legal masters over the peasantry. Eventually it was to lead to the rise of Nonconformist Churches as the only escape for the common rural people. If you've ever wondered why so many of their chapels are to be found in the middle of nowhere it is because they had to find a spare scrap of land not controlled by Church of England landowners.
The old communal farming had rested on a network of ancient traditions and mutual responsibilities. The Black Death had already loosened the ties and indirectly ushered in the Peasants' Revolt. Now, with the system under strain, the "new" gentry had moved in. Gradually, landowners began to enclose fields for their own use or that of large-scale tenants. The countryside as we know it began to take shape. Some peasants, less profitable than sheep, were simply thrown out and left to starve (as later happened to the Scottish crofters). Local lords began to distance themselves from a peasantry with whom their ancient communal ties had been broken. Hence the increasing fashion to live well away from them. Sometimes whole villages were destroyed or moved so that this could happen. The English "country house" began to become an institution and helped to perpetuate the psychological remoteness of the gentry from the common people. In a more violent, less accessible land this separation would never have been possible.
With the charitable monasteries gone, the destitute began to become a nuisance and to be blamed for their condition, as they have been ever since. Hence the draconian legislation against "sturdy beggars" in Elizabethan times - they could be whipped and branded. The rural poor have been a political "nuisance" ever since.
Hedges weren't used to enclose land because they look pretty but as a cheap, convenient way of showing boundaries and managing a mainly pastoral economy. Dry stone walls used the stones that had been cleared from the land. Buildings were of local materials because transport of heavy goods was incredibly expensive on roads that were little more than tracks. In other words the beauties of the countryside didn't develop because of planners and conservationists but because economic conditions favoured them. It just happens to look nice. And the squalid hovels that didn't look nice have long since disappeared.
Enclosure was given a huge boost in the "Agricultural Revolution". Britain was becoming the first industrial society - and new industries were growing up in both town and country. Population was exploding. There was money in meeting the demand and a big incentive to adopt the benefits of industry and science. When did it start? 1750ish? When did it end? Well, history books say about 1850, but I say never. It's still going on. We think of the countryside as peaceful and timeless - but it's in a state of constant change.
Why did the population explode? Many things affect the birth rate but the most important is age of marriage. In industrial Britain a young man could get a job and then take a wife. In agrarian economies he might have to wait until he could inherit some land. In England and Wales there were 6 million people in 1750, as against 24 million in France. By 1950, France had actually been overtaken. Currently, there are some 380 people per square kilometre in England compared to 105 in France. This crowdedness lies at the heart of many rural issues.
One consequence of exploding population and industrialisation was the loss of woodland. Some great "forests" never really existed in the modern sense - "forest" was a Norman-French legal term for any area reserved for the King's hunting, whether wooded or not. But woodland existed as a crop like any other. There is a myth that it was destroyed by the need to build great ships for the Royal Navy. In fact, demand for timber encouraged people to grow trees. But as demand died away, and population grew, our woodland vanished in a country where nearly all land is useful for agriculture. We were left with less woodland than almost any country in Europe. That is why woods don't feature much in our idyllic image of rural England. That in turn accounts for our strange hunting traditions. Deer and boar are creatures of woodland. Nobody with any self-respect would have been bothered with "vermin" such as foxes if there had been something better to chase.
The landed gentry retained their strangehold over the peasants. The last labourers' revolt, the Swing Riots of 1830, was ruthlessly put down. The last execution for sheep-stealing was also in 1830. For poachers, this was the age of the man-trap and the risk of transportation to Australia. Even rabbits and hares were out of bounds. In 1834, old legislation intended to prevent naval mutinies was resurrected to sentence the Tolpuddle Martyrs to transportation for 7 years for trying to join a trade union and resist a decrease in their wages. The union quickly folded. So the countryside was peaceful and the peasantry subservient - but at a terrible price. Even when some of the most severe laws were ameliorated, it wasn't out of pity by the rural elite. It was simply that juries became unwilling to kill people for trivial crimes.
As Britain became an industrial society, party politics began to divide on industrial lines. This was a big problem for Tory politicians. They had to try to represent their traditional constituency, the rural gentry, who wanted protection from cheap imports, but they also wanted to represent the new breed of urban industrialists who sought free trade so they could export. The Tory Party has never solved the dilemma to this day. Things came to a head in the mid-19th Century. The Irish potato famine struck. To get food in quickly and cheaply, the Tory Government was forced to abolish tariffs on imported food. Once these Corn Laws had been abolished the free trade lobby was too strong for them ever to be restored.
So what effect did this have on agriculture? Well, not much at first. But in America the prairies were being opened up for cereals and the railways were being built. By about 1873, cheap imports began to bite and the countryside fell into a terrible depression which lasted until the First World War. There was real hardship and many left for the towns or the colonies. Those who left tended to include the most able and skilled. The myth of the slow-witted rural clodhopper already existed - but it was given a hefty boost. ("Clodhopper" is actually based on the gait of a ploughman following the plough. Anyone who thinks he is stupid should try doing it.)
In the First World War agriculture was suddenly valued again, in a nation facing the U-boat menace. There was some attempt to support farming after the war, but it was back to square one when the Great Depression hit. So Britain's agriculture was just as unprepared for the next war: hence the desperate measures that had to be taken to try to feed ourselves. So afterwards there was a recognition of the need not to let that happen again, and agricultural support began in earnest. As diesel tractors replaced horses and steam, any pretence of strategic motive was soon lost. In any conventional war, our oil supplies were as vulnerable as ever.
Thereafter, agricultural subsidies grew as a piece of self-interest for a lobby that was very well-represented in the mainly Conservative corridors of power. They were given a huge boost by entry into the Common Market, where the principle had begun as a way of evening out an unpredictable market but had grown for the same reasons of self-interest. Agricultural France was able to impose its interests on the early Common Market and the agricultural stranglehold is only now beginning to wane.
"Self-interest" may sound harsh, and certainly isn't suggested as the only motivation of every farmer. But farmers are no different from any other group which has tried to protect its privileges by claiming them to be in the public interest. "Spin" wasn't suddenly invented in 1997. If anyone doubts me, consider the following:
Both agricultural employment and rural industry, of which there was plenty, have died away. Technology means that the acreage needed to employ a worker has been doubling every decade since the War. The rural working class has been annihilated. Local pubs and shops have been disappearing for decades. This was never seen as a disaster because those it affected had little political muscle: they were isolated and largely ignored by both political parties. It was only when the problem caught up with politically powerful farmers that there was suddenly a "crisis". Only then did "saving the countryside" become a political issue. See?
Little trace remains that there were ever lead or tin mines (or even coal mines!), fell mongers or industrial mills. Large industry has become an urban phenomenon. Economic forces killed off the old industry (with some help from politics!): planning regulations prevented replacements. And there lies the key to the modern countryside. It no longer creates and sustains itself. Its character has become a political rather than an economic question. If we want hedgerows and traditional farm buildings retained, who should pay for it? Should work be provided or should people move to the work? How many commuter houses should be built? And many more questions that were once irrelevant.
The English are sentimental about the countryside like no other nation. Rural comedies, dramas and detective series fill our TV screens - all painting an entirely artificial, twee picture. This is nothing new. Much of our great literature has been about the rural gentry - who had high status in the eyes of the reader and didn't interrupt the plot by having to earn their living. Urban housing gives itself mock-rural names. Suburban gardens have a wagon wheel leaning against the house or an artificial millstone in the garden. Why this cute sentimentality?
Well, the countryside looks nice, doesn't frighten us and has high-status people in it. Its history has been to create and enforce tranquility. Unlike some other countries (e.g. Bosnia) the inhabitants are like "us" - they have the same race and religion and are not too hostile to outsiders. As the first industrial nation, most of us are more removed from the harsh realities of rural life than any other nation. We have no family or folk memories of rural misery and deprivation. In France, by contrast, the highest status has gone mainly to urban culture - fine fashions, cuisine and arts. The countryside of mainly small peasant farmers has been seen as a low-status place. Similarly, in other countries it was for rednecks, bandits, clansmen, rebels, tribes, fundamentalists or paupers: even if the natives were friendly, there was malaria, climate or dangerous animals to worry about. In England, the rising middle classes want to live in the country: if they can't do that they want to pretend they are in the country.
Our aspirations, high population and improved communications combine with gentle countryside and climate to create the commuter. As well as new houses, there are plenty of empty farm workers' cottages and barns to renovate. The countryside is accessible. There are few places in England which are not in commuting distance of a reasonably large town. People can live in the country but work, play, shop and be educated somewhere else.
You couldn't do that in, say, mountainous countries, regular blizzards or over huge distances. So although we are further removed from the soil than any other peoplke, the town / country divide is actually weaker than anywhere else in the world. Few people in rural areas have no urban links. Rural England is becoming a gentrified dormitory: as the old rural working class has moved out, the urban middle class has moved in - and local shops and pubs continue to die.
We see why fox hunting is such an emotive and crystallised issue compared to many other animal welfare matters. Those who wish to adopt the image of old rural gentry versus those who find that offensive. The "right to roam" is emotive on both sides because we live in such a crowded island with a long tradition of large landowners with proprietorial attitudes. In parts of Germany, say, well away from any big city, one can roam free along a huge network of pathways connecting the land of many small peasant farmers. It isn't an issue. In Greece, I've heard that it is considered rude to challenge those crossing one's land. But Greece has less than 80 people per square kilometre.
French rural experience has been different because of its lower population density and large class of radical, independent and potentially troublesome small farmers. Hence a different attitude to rural life. There is a long history of governments toppled by disorder and an anti-authoritarian attitude among the populace (fed by the years of police collaboration with the occupying Nazis). So the peasantry has been appeased, the rural working class has survived, and the countryside has failed to hold much attraction for the urban middle class. All this, however, is now changing.
This picture of the countryside has been painted with a very broad brush. Ireland, Scotland and Wales have their own linked tales to tell. People must make up their own minds on rural issues - but remember that well within the lifetime of my grandfather's grandfather, one Henry Cook, aged 19, was hanged at Winchester for knocking off a magistrate's hat. Those who wish to reduce issues to "rural tradition" and "way of life" should ask themselves whether they could look his ghost full in the face.
Phil C., October 2000
Phil C. is in his early 50s, retired through disability and lives on a remote farmstead with his big, happy extended family who are variously involved in market trading, fencing, tree planting, village school teaching and agricultural research.