Why do villages in Britain look as they do? How can we tell the age and the heritage of their buildings? Why are they so positioned, and what can we learn from surviving features about sites and structures which no longer exist?. This book aims to answer these and other questions, bringing the past alive by explaining the significance and the history of the various elements to be found in today's villages. It discusses the natural landscape and the imprint which men and women have made on it. Farms, fields, hedges, roads, houses, schools, churches, and even oral testimony are discussed and explained.