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Contents
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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- Bedfordshire Churches in the Nineteenth Century
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Introduction to the series
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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Summary
THE BEDFORDSHIRE CHURCHES SERIES
This is to be a series of three volumes covering Bedfordshire churches in the nineteenth century. The volumes will contain descriptions of churches “on the eve of restoration” together with contemporary illustrations –most of which will be published for the first time.
For each church, there will be extracts from original records amplified by a commentary and explanatory footnotes. The main source material consists of:
1. Extracts from church inventories – mainly 1822
2. Antiquarian notes on churches by Archdeacon Bonney, c.1840
3. Archdeacon Bonney’s visitation notebooks 1823-1839
4. Articles on churches by W.A. – John Martin, the librarian at Woburn Abbey - 1845-1854
5. Church descriptions by Sir Stephen Glynne 1830-1870
There is considerable value in having these key sources, with illustrations and commentary, in one place. The descriptions by Bonney and Glynne are purely factual, but John Martin’s articles, highlighting abuses and neglect, make colourful and at times controversial reading. Bonney’s visitation notes - and the supporting evidence from contemporary records such as churchwardens’ accounts – give a clear indication that church buildings were far from neglected in the opening decades of the nineteenth century. Together these sources document features that can still be seen today, and provide information on others that have been lost.
The aim has been to present the text of contemporary sources in their original state, to convey a feeling for the times as well as to provide information. It is recognised that most of the sources could have been condensed by editing - for instance the lists of registers in the glebe terriers and the quotations in the articles by W.A. – but the Editorial Group felt that they should nevertheless be published in extenso.
The introductory commentary for each church includes a summary of the history of the building, focusing especially on eighteenth and nineteenth century restoration and alterations. These introductory notes are generally brief, but may be longer where differences between present and past external appearance merit detailed discussion. Detailed footnotes explain and amplify features mentioned in the text of the original sources and so lead the reader to additional research material.
Frontmatter
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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- Bedfordshire Churches in the Nineteenth Century
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Notes on sources: The sources - introduction
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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Summary
The Sources – Introduction
Bedfordshire churches on the eve of restoration are well documented in a number of sources. First, there are a great many pictures of churches by artists such as Thomas Fisher and George Shepherd dating from the early Cl9th. Secondly, there are the manuscript sources which describe the condition of church buildings and ornaments in the years leading up to “the age of restoration”.
These sources are described and discussed in detail below. In outline, however, they include the glebe terriers for 1822 which describe the plan of each church and list the ornaments and furnishings. As Archdeacon of Bedford from 1821 to 1844, Dr. Henry Kaye Bonney compiled two notebooks on the churches in his care. In the one, he made detailed architectural notes on each church and its fittings, and in the other he kept a record of the orders made at his archidiaconal visitations between 1823 and 1839. Another commentator was John Martin, the Librarian at Woburn Abbey, who using the signature W.A. wrote a series of pithy articles on Bedfordshire churches for the Northampton Mercury and Bedfordshire Times between 1845 and 1854. Lastly, there are the notebooks of Sir Stephen Glynne who visited over a third of the churches in the County between 1830 and 1870.
Together these sources provide a colourful image of the appearance, condition and atmosphere of Bedfordshire churches at a time when on the one hand they were nearer their mediaeval state than they are today but when on the other they were arguably in their greatest need of attention.
Glebe Terriers (extracts) 1822
After the Reformation, the ecclesiastical authorities became increasingly aware of the need to keep proper records of church possessions. The documents known as glebe terriers fulfil this purpose, and include terriers (recording property and endowments) and inventories (listing goods and chattels). The existence of such records helped to prevent the loss and misappropriation of church property.
Terriers had been compiled for purely parochial purposes in mediaeval times, but in compliance with an archiepiscopal order or canon of 1571 it became a requirement for copies of these documents to be lodged in diocesan registries for safe-keeping.
Symbols Used In Transcription
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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The Churches
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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- 05 August 2023, pp 41-318
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Summary
AMPTHILL
Although the present church dates chiefly from the Cl4th and Cl5th, the foundations of the Cl2th church were discovered during excavations in 1975. The later church has a chancel, nave with north and south aisles, south porch and west tower. It retains its Cl5th roof with angels and shields (though the painted decoration is modem) and there is a ceilure above the former rood.
In 1696 a private pew was constructed for Lord Ashbumham of Ampthill Park in the south aisle of the church. Sir Christopher Wren and his pupil Nicholas Hawksmoor were involved in the design, and the pew was built by Alexander Fort, the King’s joiner. There was a heated legal dispute between Lord Ashburnham and Lord Ailesbury of Houghton House about this pew, which was eventually removed in 1847. The entrance through the east wall of the south aisle is shown in Buckler’s drawing dated 1835 (Plate 2). Lord Ailesbury had his own pew in the church, and there are faculties and papers regarding other Cl8th pews. In 1827 Boissier described the church as “crowded with pews & galleries”. Between 1823 and 1839 Bonney ordered several improvements to the pews, and in 1845 W.A. was highly critical of the arrangement of the church interior.
A faculty was obtained in 1728 to replace the pulpit, take down the chancel screen, and alter various windows. It was probably at this date that the pulpit was placed centrally in the chancel arch where it remained until 1847. Other repairs and alterations in the Cl8th and early Cl9th are recorded in the churchwardens’ accounts from 1718, vestry minutes from 1767, and churchwardens bills from 1823 (listed individually by Andrew Underwood) in the parish records.
Restoration came in 1847-8 under James Tacy Wing of Bedford, who provided new seats and galleries in the nave (Plate 3) and renewed the east window, repaired the roof and stonework, and added a small vestry on the north side of the chancel. In 1851-2 the church was lit by gas.
The tracery of the windows in the south aisle was renewed in 1872-3. Further work followed in 1877 when the vestry on the north side of the chancel was enlarged under James Piers St. Aubyn, although not all the work authorised by the faculty was carried out.
General Introduction
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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Summary
The parish churches of England are among the most noble and conspicuous of the nation’s architectural monuments. Their survival, however, owes more to chance than to good stewardship. Neglect, decay, and deliberate destruction are as much a part of their history as the work of dedicated benefactors and parishioners who strove to make our churches worthy for Christian worship.
As the sources selected for inclusion in this series demonstrate all too clearly, many Bedfordshire churches were in a dilapidated state in the opening decades of the nineteenth century. Others, whilst structurally sound and decently furnished for the worship of the day, needed “restoration” – a term meaning much more than just repair. This was the situation facing the Victorians who – far from vandalising our heritage – sought to restore these precious buildings from years of neglect and adapt them to suit the new liturgical arrangements of the time.
The coming of the ecclesiological movement in the 1840s brought a new concern for the ceremonial aspects of worship – the ministry of the sacraments instead of the ministry of the word. This entailed a change in the arrangement of church buildings, the old “preaching boxes” of the Cl8th giving way to churches in which all attention focused on the chancel and the holy table in the sanctuary. The reformers often exaggerated the poor state of church buildings as a means of drawing attention to the need for change, and the Victorians were invariably critical of alterations and repairs carried out in previous centuries when utility had been regarded as more important than sanctity.
Between about 1840 and 1914 virtually every parish church in England was in some measure restored, and vast sums of money were spent on what was seen to be one of the most worthy causes of the Victorian era. Many churches were rescued from the brink of collapse and given a new lease of life. Some were restored to their former glory. Others were mutilated beyond recognition or wholly rebuilt. Churches viewed by the Victorians as “tainted by classical alterations” were gothicised. Sound buildings were “improved” to suit the needs of a new religious age.
Bedfordshire churches 1550-1914 - a general survey
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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Summary
Churches remaining “unrestored” in appearance are to be seen at Chaigrave, Dean, Knotting, Odell, Shelton and Wymington (to name a few of the more rewarding examples in the County), but sadly the phrase “over restored” is all too common in the Bedfordshire volume of Dr. Nikolaus Pevsner’s Buildings of England series.
A brief general survey of post-Reformation church work in the County will be useful as an introduction to the subject. It seems sensible to frame the review round the work of architects - the designers of buildings and of furnishing schemes - who worked at different periods and in different styles. In this way, it is possible to view the changes in ecclesiastical taste in the County in their broader national context.
Post-Reformation church building to 1800
In general terms, church building activity came to an abrupt end at the time of the Reformation. There are, however, exceptions and recent studies in the neighbouring county of Huntingdonshire have demonstrated the extent of building work and improvements to churches into the seventeenth century. This may be untypical of the general picture, and Bedfordshire lacks any particularly distinguished examples of churches dating from the period between 1550 and 1800. Those mentioned below are all relatively minor when compared with the treasures in neighbouring counties, such as:
In Bedfordshire, Hulcote church was rebuilt by the Chemocke family in the late sixteenth century. It is gothic in form, but with a distinctly Renaissance feel. The tower at Blunham was rebuilt in 1583. At Odell there is a fine screen and ringing gallery of 1637 in the tower arch. At Campton, the north aisle dates from 1649. Whipsnade church was rebuilt in 1719. Melchboume has a seventeenthcentury porch brought, it is said, from Woodford in Northamptonshire. The body of the church was rebuilt in the classical style in about 1770. Shillington tower, destroyed in a storm in 1701, was rebuilt in brick in 1750. The 1783 black basalt Wedgwood font at Cardington - another formerly existed at Melchboume - is a particularly memorable example of eighteenth-century church furnishing. In every one of these cases the identity of the architect is unknown.
Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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- 05 August 2023, pp iv-v
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Preface and acknowledgments
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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Summary
Having lived and worked in Bedfordshire for the past sixteen years, I have visited every church in the County in the course of my work. While on the staff of the Bedfordshire County Record Office I have been responsible for surveying and listing all the church records, and I am fortunate that this has enabled me to develop an intimate knowledge of the churches and their history.
It is my hope that in preparing these volumes I may be able to pass on some of this knowledge for the benefit of people interested either in specific churches or in the subject generally. I should like to thank the Society for publishing this book. I also wish to thank Gordon Vowles, the General Editor, and my colleagues on the Editorial Group for their constructive comments and suggestions throughout its gestation period.
Formal acknowledgment is due to the authorities and owners who have allowed the publication of their material. The 1822 glebe terriers are published here by kind permission of Lincoln Diocesan Record Office. Archdeacon Bonney’s church notes were among the manuscripts transferred to the County Record Office from the old Bedford Library, while Bonney’s visitation notes appear by kind permission of the present Archdeacon of Bedford, the Ven. Malcolm Lesiter. Sir Stephen Glynne’s Bedfordshire church notes are published by kind permission of Sir William Gladstone. Thanks are also due to Geoffrey Veysey, the Clwyd County Archivist, for providing information on the notes and for allowing me to quote from his article about Sir Stephen Glynne. The sources of illustrations are acknowledged separately.
Material for this volume has been gathered from several record repositories and institutions. My first debt of gratitude is to my colleagues in the Bedfordshire County Record Office, but I must also thank the staff at the British Library, the British Newspaper Library, the library of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Bedfordshire County Library Service, Lambeth Palace Library, Cambridge University Library, Lincolnshire Archives, and the Hertfordshire County Record Office for their help and advice.
Thanks are also due to all those who have typed parts of the text including Deborah Blake and Ellen Collier, but especially to Pauline Newbery on whom the main body of the work has fallen.
List of Illustrations
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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Bedfordshire Churches in the Nineteenth Century
- Volume 73, Part 1, Parishes A to G
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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Three volumes of detailed description of Bedfordshire parish churches, presented with text from five important nineteenth-century sources; Appendices and Index complete the set.
Bibliography
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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Abbreviations and symbols used in transcription
- Edited by Chris Pickford
- Alan F. Cirket, Andrew Underwood, Anne Buck, Bernard Cashman, Colin Chapman, David Baker, David Bushby, Edwin Welch, Elizabeth Moser, Eric Stockdale, Herman Wellenreuther, James Collett-White, Margaret McGregor, Richard Marks, Richard Wildman, Simon Houfe, Sylvia Woods
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8 - Conclusions and policy implications
- Mark Shucksmith, Newcastle University, Jayne Glass, Scotland's Rural College and University of Edinburgh, Polly Chapman, Jane Atterton, Scotland's Rural College
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- Rural Poverty Today
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- Bristol University Press
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- 18 January 2024
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- 22 February 2023, pp 212-234
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Summary
This study has explored the processes of social exclusion in rural Britain by focusing on changes in the four sources of support available to households in diverse rural localities (markets, state, voluntary and community sector, and family and friends) and how they interact to reinforce cumulatively or to substitute and offset social exclusion and financial vulnerability. This conceptual approach has proved effective in revealing the connections between individual experiences and broader processes of individualisation, precariatisation, labour market flexibilisation, welfare conditionality, digitalisation, ‘roll-back’ and ‘roll-out’ neoliberalisation and austerity and the extent to which these are modified by place. The framework has also revealed emergent agency on the part of rural residents (individual and collective) and highlighted issues around civil society and community empowerment.
In conclusion, this chapter offers some closing reflections on the original contributions of this study to our understanding of poverty and social exclusion in rural Britain and on the implications for policy and practice. We begin by reflecting on the main themes emerging from this study and highlight some of the new insights which add to our understanding of social exclusion in rural Britain. We then summarise previous studies’ suggestions for policy interventions and go on to consider the potential to combine person-based and place-based policy approaches to social exclusion in rural areas. Building on these, we highlight some of the most pressing, immediate policy challenges and suggest eight practical opportunities for policy development to address these and promote social inclusion in rural Britain. Finally, we share some closing reflections relating to issues of power and governance.
Main themes emerging and original contributions
While statistics show that average incomes are somewhat above the national average in accessible rural areas, this research confirms the findings of many previous studies that poverty, financial vulnerability and social exclusion affect many people in rural as well as urban Britain, but that in rural Britain it is less visible and less likely to be addressed by policy. As noted in the introduction, half the households in rural Britain fell below the poverty line at some point during the 18 years between 1991 and 2008, at which point the impacts of the financial crisis and subsequent austerity will have increased vulnerability further alongside cuts to public services and social welfare.
6 - Rural poverty in a pandemic: experiences of COVID-19
- Mark Shucksmith, Newcastle University, Jayne Glass, Scotland's Rural College and University of Edinburgh, Polly Chapman, Jane Atterton, Scotland's Rural College
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- Rural Poverty Today
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- Bristol University Press
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- 18 January 2024
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- 22 February 2023, pp 161-190
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Summary
Our research began in September 2019, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and continued until July 2020, four months into the first lockdown period in the UK. This gave us a unique insight into poverty and social exclusion in rural Britain both immediately before and during the pandemic. Using the evidence from our fieldwork and other research published after the end of our data collection period, this chapter explores the impacts of COVID-19 on rural people experiencing financial hardship.
The lived experiences presented in the three previous chapters highlight the many ways, both positive and negative, that living in a rural area affects local opportunity structures. The cost of living in rural, remote and island areas is substantially higher than in towns and cities, partly because of distance to services, but also because of the costs of heating homes which are often off grid and less well insulated. Access to well-paid work and secure, affordable housing may be more difficult in rural areas without an income from commuting or telecommuting. Access to public services is also likely to present challenges and people eligible for welfare benefits face barriers of distant sources of advice and help, and centralisation of welfare support, inaccessible assessment centres and perhaps social stigma. Private, public and third-sector organisations all face difficulties in reaching into rural areas to offer their support and, while digitalisation may help them to reach some people, this can exclude others without good connectivity or access to devices. These barriers all relate to distance, mobility and access and may be more severe in remote and island areas, like in Harris and the North Tyne valley.
Experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic have brought all these rural vulnerabilities into sharp relief.
Notes
- Mark Shucksmith, Newcastle University, Jayne Glass, Scotland's Rural College and University of Edinburgh, Polly Chapman, Jane Atterton, Scotland's Rural College
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- Rural Poverty Today
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5 - The North Tyne valley, Northumberland: a remote area of England
- Mark Shucksmith, Newcastle University, Jayne Glass, Scotland's Rural College and University of Edinburgh, Polly Chapman, Jane Atterton, Scotland's Rural College
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- Rural Poverty Today
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- 18 January 2024
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- 22 February 2023, pp 121-160
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Summary
Like Harris, the Northumberland study is in a remote rural area, this time on the mainland of Britain in the north-east of England. Just south of the Scottish border, almost equidistant from the west and east coasts, the valley of the North Tyne river rises in the Cheviot Hills above Kielder Water, a reservoir surrounded by Kielder Forest. The largest villages are downstream, including the main settlement of Bellingham. The North Tyne valley study area includes the four civil parishes of Bellingham, Kielder, Falstone and Tarset and Greystead, covering around 530 km2 (see Figure 5.1). The south-east part of the study area is within the boundaries of Northumberland National Park, which was designated in 1956. The National Park is the most northerly and most remote from large urban areas, least visited and least populated of the ten National Parks in England. The travel time by car to the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which has a population of around 800,000, is 80 minutes from Kielder, or around 50 minutes from Bellingham.
There is a wealth of history in the area, with many scheduled monuments, listed buildings and archaeological sites. In the Middle Ages, this was one of the most dangerous parts of England and inhabitants had to live in a state of constant alert. Scotland and England were frequently at war and ‘Border reivers’ (raiders) along the Anglo-Scottish border robbed the entire county without regard to the nationality of their victims. Today, the beautiful valley is much more peaceful and home to just over 2,000 people – one of the lowest population densities in England. Most residents live in the Bellingham parish (1,325), followed by Tarset and Greystead (262), Falstone (245) and Kielder (187) (Office for National Statistics, 2018).
Although these four parishes are situated near one another, they are quite different. Tarset and Greystead parish and Kielder parish are two of the most sparsely populated parishes in the UK (1.5 people per km2 in Tarset and Greystead), with ageing demographic profiles and a high proportion of older residents. The population has declined in recent decades in Kielder (-9 per cent between 2002 and 2017), a village developed by the Forestry Commission in the 1950s to accommodate the large number of workers expected to work in Kielder Forest.
2 - Poverty and social exclusion in rural Britain: a review
- Mark Shucksmith, Newcastle University, Jayne Glass, Scotland's Rural College and University of Edinburgh, Polly Chapman, Jane Atterton, Scotland's Rural College
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- Rural Poverty Today
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- Bristol University Press
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- 18 January 2024
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- 22 February 2023, pp 17-39
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Summary
Research, media, policy and public attention have traditionally tended to focus on exploring the reasons for, extent of and responses to urban poverty, and particularly poverty experienced in the UK's biggest cities (Pacione, 2004). In contrast to other countries, such as the USA (Shucksmith and Schafft, 2012; Tickamyer et al, 2017), poverty in the UK has been widely viewed as primarily an urban phenomenon, associated with concentrations of poor housing, unemployment and social problems, with rural areas viewed in contrasting terms as idyllic and affluent (see, for example, Cloke et al, 2000a; 2000b; Milbourne, 2014). Indeed, Pacione (2004) argues that when the term ‘rural disadvantage’ entered policy debates in the UK in the 1970s, it suffered from a serious lack of credibility, with many arguing it was a contradiction in terms (McLaughlin, 1991). Popular perceptions of rural areas and rural society at the time were generally characterised by images of an unchanging, comparatively affluent environment where the policy priority was the protection of the rural way of life. By contrast, deprivation was viewed as an urban phenomenon, characterised by highly visible poor housing, unemployment and dereliction (Woodward, 1996).
In addition to its urban focus, research on poverty has more often than not tended to take a fairly static and statistical data-focused approach, rather than being grounded in, or even incorporating, more qualitative studies of individuals’ and households’ lived experiences of low income (that is, limited monetary resources measured against a national level) alongside other factors such as poor health, low educational attainment, social isolation, precarious housing situations and cultural marginalisation (Lister, 2004; Milbourne, 2014; Milbourne and Coulson, 2020).
May et al (2020) noted that the focus on urban poverty remains (see also Williams and Doyle, 2016), with rural poverty tending to receive far less attention among UK academics and policy makers than urban poverty. Having said that, there has been an increasing recognition, in research terms at least, that some rural dwellers may suffer from similar challenges to those experienced in deprived urban neighbourhoods, including poor employment situations and a lack of appropriate and affordable housing, but that there are additional and specifically rural factors which may – often in combination – exacerbate the experience of poverty and exclusion in rural places.
7 - Changing sources of support: precarity, conditionality and social solidarity
- Mark Shucksmith, Newcastle University, Jayne Glass, Scotland's Rural College and University of Edinburgh, Polly Chapman, Jane Atterton, Scotland's Rural College
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- Rural Poverty Today
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- Bristol University Press
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- 18 January 2024
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- 22 February 2023, pp 191-211
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Summary
The previous four chapters have examined how changes in each of the four systems of resource allocation (markets, state, voluntary and community organisations, family and friends) affect individual financial hardship, wellbeing and vulnerability in rural Britain. The empirical data presented thus far raises important questions that require further consideration, particularly in relation to the interactions between the four different systems of support. Do they complement each other, or do they compound social exclusion? For example, does support from the state compensate for loss of income from employment? Are there individuals or social groups who might be neglected by several or all sources of support? Do these interactions differ between places? And does the strength of support vary from place to place? We now seek to dig more deeply into the processes of social exclusion which underlie financial hardship and vulnerability in rural places, drawing on our rich data to compare and contrast the three case studies and situate our work within the literature reviewed at the outset.
Precariatisation and the evolution of rural economies
Rural economies have undergone considerable structural change in recent decades, even though this may have been less dramatic and visible than the loss of heavy industry in post-industrial urban areas. The gradual loss of employment in agriculture and forestry exceeds the more intense loss of jobs in the British coal industry, for example. Meanwhile, there has been a growth in service sector activities which now dominate employment in both rural and urban areas. These structural changes were evident across the Western Isles (affecting Harris), Perthshire (affecting East Perthshire) and Northumberland (affecting the North Tyne valley), and in each region there has been an increasing reliance on employment and self-employment in tourism and hospitality, alongside growth in public sector employment (until austerity policies reversed this latter trend from 2010). In conjunction with a decline in crofting, Harris has experienced a considerable increase in ‘destination tourism’, which has enabled several major new employers to create new job opportunities in the area. However, the growth in tourism in Harris presents a double-edged sword: some employers face staff shortages, partly because of a decrease in the working-age population and partly due to a lack of local affordable housing for employees.