Last one out shut the gate

 A favourite from a couple of years ago. I'm out that way tomorrow which led me to think of it again.

This island of ours, Britain, is a small land mass.

There cannot be a square foot of its soil on which no soul has trodden over the millenia.

Imagine this scenario. You buy a house and look out over the back garden.

You might wonder, in an idle moment, about its history or past land use but in the majority of cases not much thought is given to this theme.

It is different when you purchase something with a designated Ancient Monument within your boundaries.

This was the case just this week when I was asked to look around an old farmhouse close to the North Sea coast of Yorkshire.

The Estate Agents were understandably vague in their sales details about the existence in the grounds of the site of a deserted Medieval Village but then again some folk are a bit wary and suspicious of the thought of long lost souls on their doorstep.

On the adjoining paddock there is nothing really to see apart from a few lumpy bits of earth and a regular arrangement of trench type excavations but in the context of a nicely elevated site, proximity to a source of fresh water and an abundance of natural resources who would not think that this specific location would be an ideal place to make a home and a living?

A few country dwellers around the time of the Domesday Survey obviously held the same opinion as a settlement existed at Southorpe just to the south west of the town of Hornsea around that time and evidently thrived for some centuries after that.

By the year 1374 there was reported to be a population of 60 persons of which 28 were of sufficient personal means to be liable for an early form of taxation- the Poll Tax.

The land was obviously capable of providing a livelihood in what must have been a fairly precarious existence and all crammed in to a life expectancy not beyond 30 or so years.

This Deserted Medieval village (DMV)  has been the subject of archaeological and scientific study in the modern era being regarded by the academic community as a well preserved example but still with considerable evidence of an ordinary working life yet to be investigated.

Nothing much has been imposed on that environment to disturb the wealth of information and insight concealed within those earthworks.

The house adjacent to the undulating pasture has been part of a larger agricultural estate for decades and the land  kept , as though in thoughtful consideration, as pasture.

In fact the only alien structure in that landscape is a lozenge shaped concrete pill box from the second world war civil defence programme.

A series of investigations in the near past identified a small group of houses, gardens, yards, streets, paddock, village green, a manor house and church all of which were fundamental to a God fearing community devoted primarily to survival through agriculture.

So what contributed to the decision of the occupants, en masse ,or at least in the majority to abandon Southorpe village some time around 1600?

Those villagers were not alone in making that sort of life changing thought process.

Across the UK there are over 2000 deserted Medieval Villages and the reasons for leaving are almost as numerous.

Most cited is the decimation of human life by the ravages of the Black Death in the 14th Century but other documented cases suggest peculiarly local or regional circumstances at play.

The whims of a powerful landowner in handing over a village to sheep pasture often resulted in depopulation.

Environmental changes could not be ruled out as although we regard Climate Change as a modern phenomena there were crop and livestock failures at other periods in history from volcanic eruptions, mini ice ages and heat waves, drought and flood.

In the situation of Southorpe Village there may have been a disastrous decline in the potability of the freshwater supply of the adjacent freshwater Mere or an inundation affecting the grazing and cultivation of the lower lying marshland.

Fluctuations in the ground water levels or water table could cause bore holes and wells to run dry therefore depriving villages of one of the prime resources for habitation.

The abandonment of any place of livelihood will not have been an impulsive decision, being more of a grinding down of the residents with variable determination and means to tough out any threats.

Financial burdens will have been a contributing factor through the imposition of lay subsidies, poll and hearth taxes and pressure exerted by the landed classes with Manorial Rights.

The Civil War in England in the 17th Century saw a few villages burnt to the ground by either of the protagonists for strategic reasons withe their populations distributed elsewhere locally.

Villages which had, for example, relied upon the trade and patronage of Medieval religious pilgrims could become discredited by rumour or falsehoods of miracles and experience a catastrophic decline in fortunes.

The rise in the attraction of a neighbouring settlement could also sound the death knell for a previously thriving one.

The Domesday roll call could conceivably have been misleading in its recording of a local population as although a monetary value was given to a certain location this could have been concentrated on a cluster of farmsteads and buildings giving the impression of a larger cluster of population where none existed.

 A very specific example of the desertion of a village is from another location in East Yorkshire when in the 17th Century a popular Preacher took with him to America the majority of his parishioners. In reality they could probably be counted on one or more hands but still represented a good proportion of the village-folk.

So, in the case of Southorpe we may not ever know the motivation to vacate what even today was clearly a bit of a garden of Eden.