By John Cole

3 - Urban Shadow

These are localities where to all appearances a village community ought to exist but doesn’t. In practice it is so near a large urban area that its heart has been eaten out.

‘Commuter Rural’ villages, despite or perhaps because of their internal tensions, are often quite lively places. ‘Urban Shadow’ villages are places where it seems nothing will go.

The entire population, except for an almost extinct group of ‘old villagers’, will commute to town for nearly everything they require. The public houses in the village thrive only because of the townspeople travelling in the opposite direction!

Church life is almost as extinct as the indigenous villager. Non-Anglicans have no choice but to worship at the town church anyway.