| | Page |
| [Health and Beauty in Modern Town Planning] | |
| Frontispiece | |
[Implements and Ornaments of Stone, Bronze, and
Iron Ages] | 8 |
| [Stonehenge] | 13 |
| [Remains of a Roman House, excavated at Silchester] | 20 |
| [The Village Green, Exton, Rutland] | 28 |
| [Cross and Church, Geddington, Northamptonshire] | 37 |
| [Choir of Canterbury Cathedral] | 57 |
| [The Old Palace, Hatfield] | 72 |
| [Facsimile of a Portion of a Norman Document] | 88 |
| [Castle and Butter Market, Dunster, Somersetshire] | 105 |
| [Cloister Quadrangle, Magdalen College, Oxford] | 120 |
| [Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire] | 137 |
| [Interior of St. Mary-le-Bow, London] | 157 |
| [A School Playground Scene] | 164 |
| [Cricket, 18th Century] | 172 |
| [The New Inn, Gloucester] | 181 |
ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIAGRAMS
| [Chipped Flint Weapons] | 5 |
| [Lake-dwelling] | 10 |
| [Round Barrow] | 12 |
| [Long Barrow] | 12 |
[
Dolmen at Plas Newydd, Anglesea. The scene
of Druidical religious rites] | 14 |
| [Roman Pottery Kiln found at Castor, Hunts] | 18 |
[
Saxon Brooch found at Abingdon, made of
gold encrusted with coloured glass] | 23 |
| [Diagram of a Saxon Village Settlement] | 23 |
[Ploughing. From an old Saxon Calendar in the
British Museum] | 31 |
| [Saxon Church at Bradford-on-Avon] | 40 |
[
Agriculture. From an eleventh-century manuscript in the
British Museum] | 43 |
[
Ploughing. From an eleventh-century manuscript in the
British Museum] | 45 |
| [Wooden Church at Greenstead, Essex] | 47 |
| [Consecration of a Saxon Church] | 49 |
| [Saxon Doorway, Earl's Barton, Northampton] | 51 |
| [Domesday Book] | 55 |
| [Norman Capital, Buckland Church, Berks] | 56 |
| [Norman Capital, Hanney Church, Berks] | 57 |
[
Norman Capital, St. Bartholomew's Priory Church,
London] | 57 |
| [Rochester Castle: The Keep] | 59 |
| [The White Tower, Tower of London] | 60 |
| [Norman Castle] | 63 |
| [Ruins of Furness Abbey] | 65 |
| [Foundation of a Minster] | 67 |
| [Bath Abbey] | 68 |
| [The Jew's House, Lincoln] | 71 |
| [Diagram of the Shape of a Villein's House] | 72 |
| [Old House, Cleveland, Yorkshire] | 74 |
[Shop of the Middle Ages now standing in Foregate
Street, Chester] | 77 |
[A Cradle of the Fourteenth Century now in a London
Museum] | 78 |
[The Shambles, York; a street that preserves its narrow,
mediæval character] | 81 |
| [Hospital of St. Cross, Winchester] | 84 |
| [Seal of Guild Merchant, Gloucester, 1200] | 85 |
| [Court-house of Godmanchester, Hunts] | 88 |
| [Manor House, Thirteenth Century] | 91 |
| [Saxon, Norman, and Later Architectural Features] | 93 |
| [Effigy with Crossed Legs in the Temple Church,
London] | 96 |
| [Spire of Norwich Cathedral Fourteenth Century] | 98 |
[A Scriptorium, from a miniature painted in an old
manuscript] | 101 |
| [Writing before the Norman Conquest] | 103 |
| [Morris Dancers, Fourteenth Century] | 107 |
| [Market Cross and Portion of Shelter, Winchester] | 109 |
| [Market Scene in the Middle Ages] | 111 |
| [A School, Fourteenth Century] | 115 |
| [Part of Winchester College, built in 1692] | 117 |
[Gloucester Hall, now Worcester College, Oxford,
founded 1283] | 119 |
[Gownsman of Fifteenth Century. From an old print of
Chaucer's Clerk of Oxenford] | 121 |
| [Labourers felling a Tree, Fourteenth Century] | 124 |
| [Spinning Wheel, Fourteenth Century] | 124 |
| [Wayfarers, Early Fourteenth Century] | 130 |
| [The Moat House, Ightham, Kent] | 131 |
| [Part of the House called Plas Mawr, Conway, Wales] | 134 |
[Old Timbered House, at Presleigh, Radnorshire,
dated 1616] | 138 |
| [Moreton Old Hall, Cheshire, built 1550-59] | 140 |
| [Diagram of a Large House] | 142 |
| [Hall and Staircase, Knole House, Kent, 1570] | 143 |
| [A Room in an Elizabethan House] | 144 |
| [Blickling Hall, Norfolk, built 1619] | 145 |
| [Monument in Chelsea Church, London; date about
1630] | 148 |
[House at Rainham, Essex, built during the reign of
Queen Anne] | 150 |
| [Doorway from a House in Gt. Ormond Street, London] | 152 |
| [Pews in a Church at Stokesay, Shropshire, rebuilt
1654] | 155 |
[King Edward VI's School and Alms Houses,
Stratford-on-Avon] | 159 |
| [Charity School, Gravel Lane, London] | 162 |
| [Bluecoat Boy] | 164 |
| [Schoolmaster and Pupils, early Seventeenth
Century] | 166 |
[Richmond County School. A modern council school
under
the supervision of the Board of Education] | 167 |
| [Apprentice, Sixteenth Century] | 169 |
| [Apprentices, Eighteenth Century] | 170 |
| [The Game of Bob-apple, Fourteenth Century] | 171 |
| [Boys' Sports] | 173 |
| [Diagrams of Layouts for a Boy's Game] | 174 |
| [Cart, Fourteenth Century] | 176 |
| [A Toll-gate, early Nineteenth Century] | 179 |
| [Coach, early Nineteenth Century] | 180 |
| [George Stephenson's Locomotive "The Rocket"] | 183 |
| [Building a Railway in the early Nineteenth
Century] | 186 |
| [Sankey Valley Viaduct] | 188 |
| [The Town Hall, Carlisle, built in time of
Elizabeth] | 190 |
| [Police Officer and Jailer, early Nineteenth
Century] | 192 |
| [Hayes Barton Farm, Devonshire] | 197 |
| [Modern Industry] | 200 |
SOCIAL
LIFE IN ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
Introduction
A little boy, who had been born in a log-cabin in the backwoods of Canada, was taken by his father, when he was about eight years old, to the nearest settlement, for the first time in his life. The little fellow had never till then seen any other house than that in which he had been born, for the settlement was many miles away. "Father," he said, "what makes all the houses come together?"
Now that sounds a very strange and foolish question to ask; but it is by no means as foolish a question as it seems. Here, in England, there are towns and villages dotted about all over the country. Some of them are near the sea, on some big bay or inlet; others stand a little farther inland, on the banks of tidal rivers; others are far away from the sea, in sheltered valleys or on the sunny slopes of hills; some stand in the midst of broad fertile plains, while others are on the verge of bleak lonely moorlands. What has made all the houses in these towns and villages come together in these particular spots? There must be a reason in every case why a particular spot should have been chosen in the first instance.
In trying to find an answer to this question with reference to any town or village in our country we have to go back, far back, into the past. We may have to go back to ages long before there was any written history. As we go back step by step into the past we learn much of the people who have lived before us—of their ways and their doings, and of the part they played in the life and work of the country.