On a recent trip back to the UK for my mother’s 80th birthday celebrations, after a very large Sunday roast lamb lunch at the family home, I went for a walk into the local village to have a look around and walk off some of the excessive eating I had indulged in. And I was happy to see that village life in England is thriving.
After I left high school, my parents moved from central Bristol to a rural house just outside a village called Wrington. Having grown up in a city, moving to the countryside was a bit of a shock to the system for me. I was only living there on visits home during the university holidays, but I remember being a bit upset about being what I thought of as marooned in the countryside wilderness. At that time I was living in the heart of Manchester as a law student, and Manchester at the time was the epicentre of British modern culture.
Manchester played an important role in shaping pop culture in the 1980s, particularly in the music scene. The city was at the forefront of the emerging “Madchester” music scene, which combined indie rock, dance music, and psychedelia to create a distinct sound that was closely associated with Manchester.
We had The Stone Roses, who formed in Manchester in 1983 and released their debut album in 1989. The band’s music blended elements of psychedelic rock and dance music, and their catchy melodies and socially conscious lyrics helped to define the Manchester sound.
And we had a club scene that defined British dance music. Friends from school that had chosen to move to London came up to Manchester on the weekends for clubbing, simply because it was better than London at the time. The Hacienda nightclub, opened in 1982 by Factory Records boss Tony Wilson and financed mostly by the band New Order, became one of the most famous clubs in the world, and was closely associated with the emerging dance music culture. The club played a key role in the development of acid house music, which would go on to become one of the defining sounds of the 1990s. Blue Monday by New Order is still one of my favourite songs of all time, released in 1983 it just celebrated its 40th anniversary. Unbelievable!
The prospect of spending weeks in a countryside village filled me with a feeling of dread. And I was probably quite an annoying young person to be around for my parents, at the start of my visits. But the reality was actually very different from my preconceptions. It seems I am actually just as comfortable being in a rural setting as I am in a dense urban setting. I guess it is in my genes, with both of my parents growing up in deep rural Devon. And I loved spending time in the holidays as a kid on my Dad’s family dairy farm, with my grandparents and uncle. And the farm dog Bonzo of course! I actually enjoyed being out of the city, with the gentle sounds of the countryside rather than the constant noise of the city. Walks with the dogs, a sandwich lunch and pint of beer at the local pub, helping my Dad outside in the vegetable garden, grocery shopping with my Mum. And plenty of free time for studying the law books! I found my study notes in my old bedroom last year when visiting my Mum, and after a lot of deliberation decided to throw them out. What use could I ever get in my current pie-making life from contract law notes from the late 1980s.
It was on my recent walk into and around Wrington village that I realised the reason I actually enjoyed being home for the holidays back then was because I was being a part of my parents’ new life, in the countryside, where they wanted to live. And the village being only a short walk away gave me a sense of community inclusion rather than what I had originally thought of as rural isolation. The village basically has everything you need for simple living and the feeling of being a member of a community.
So what actually is a village? This is difficult to answer as there is no single official definition of what constitutes a village. However, a village is generally considered to be a small settlement that is smaller than a town but larger than a hamlet, typically with a few hundred to a few thousand residents. To be classified as a village, a settlement must have both a place of worship, basically a church, and a central meeting place, such as a village hall. A hamlet has neither. Nowadays, ‘town’ usually refers to market towns, settlements with a town council, and larger settlements which can’t be classified as cities. But none of these categorisations actually have a definition.
The recorded population of Wrington in 2021 was 2746, which puts it at the top end of the scale in terms of size. The population is actually increasing now, with new house developments being approved for construction. Village life is becoming increasingly popular, particularly with the ability to work from home for many professions.
It is situated about 10 miles southwest of the city of Bristol and about 20 miles southeast of the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare. The village is surrounded by rolling countryside and is located within the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Wrington has a long history, with evidence of human habitation dating back to around 1000BC. The village has a number of historic buildings and landmarks, including the 14th-century All Saints’ Church, which features a 17th-century pulpit and 19th-century stained glass windows. Other notable buildings include the Court House, a 17th-century former manor house, and the Old Rectory, a Georgian-era building that was once the home of novelist Hannah More.
Today, Wrington is a thriving community with a range of amenities, including two village stores, a post office, two pubs, a pharmacy, hairdressers, flower shop/art gallery, health food shop and a primary school.
The village is also home to a number of community groups and events, such as a weekly country market, an annual flower show and the Wrington Beer Festival. Shame I missed that one, with 24 different locally produced beers and 6 ciders from some of the best breweries and cider makers.
Then there are some interesting small businesses that call Wrington home, including two beer breweries and a producer of high quality charcuterie. Butcombe Brewery (https://butcombe.com/) was established in 1978 and in their words “Bristol born and made to stand out, Butcombe Brewing Co. began life at a time of cultural, social and political change, crafting beer before ‘craft beer’ was even a thing.” Butcombe have grown into a good sized business, with a brewery producing over 170,000 pints of beer a week and a chain of pubs and hotels across the South West of England.
On a smaller scale, Twisted Oak Brewery (https://www.twistedoakbrewery.co.uk/) is a micro-brewery located in a farm shed on what used to be a pig farm. Owned and run by three owners, they produce 4500 pints of craft beer a week.
Somerset Charcuterie was set up 8 years ago by Wrington locals Andy and James. Both were keen meat curers and salami makers and they came together to move their hobby into a small business to develop a range of salami, chorizo and cured meats that follow traditional Spanish, French and Italian methods. They now use up to two tonnes of pork a week, along with local wild venison, local free range duck, grass fed beef and lamb. Everything is handmade to preserve the artisan texture, flavours and look of their products. I bought a pack of their mixed cured meats and it was absolutely delicious.
So, I am glad to report that British village life is thriving and the sense of being part of a community is the main reason my Mum wants to carry on living in Wrington. It all makes sense to me now.