Largest village in England
From Freepedia
Many villages claim to be the largest village in England. This title is essentially a meaningless one, as it cannot be verified because of the lack of a common definition of a village, and the absence of any particular benefits associated with the status.
The claim is complicated by disputes over what exactly constitutes a village. Definitions can refer to population, area, a key building (e.g. school, retail outlet, church or village hall), a village nameplate or a minimum number of houses (e.g. 20). One tongue-in-cheek requirement is that its High Street should not have a Woolworths.
The typical English local government district contains a variety of settlements and their boundaries are not formally determined. Civil parishes do exist, but parishes can contain several distinct villages or hamlets. Informally, many settlements are described both as a town and a village by different people. Furthermore, settlements have a tendency to become larger and, when they do, many residents tend to prefer to think of their home as a village rather than a town, and institutions such as a village green or village hall will tend to retain the name that they were given when the settlement was smaller. For these reasons it is most unlikely that any definitive answer to the question could ever be obtained.
A typical contender is Kidlington in Oxfordshire, which has a population of around 11,000. Whilst Kidlington might be described as a town in colloquial use, it has not formally taken on this status and still has a parish council rather than a town council. Many other villages are in a similar position. Some of the claimants below (Cottingham and Lancing including) are part of larger urban areas, and it can be contended that such claimants are now suburbs rather than villages.
Contenders
Places for which this claim has been made (with an estimate of their current population in brackets) include:
- Barnt Green in Worcestershire (2,974)
- Bayston Hill in Shropshire (5,200)
- Bembridge on the Isle of Wight (4,600) makes the claim to be one of the largest villages in Europe[1]
- Birchington in Kent (16,000)
- Braunton in Devon (8,000)
- Cranleigh in Surrey (11,000)
- Cottingham in the East Riding of Yorkshire (17,750) has made the claim on the basis of including the 93 km² grounds of Cottingham manor.
- Gnosall in Staffordshire (5,000); whether neighbouring Gnosall Heath is part of the village is disputed.
- Haddenham in Buckinghamshire (4,800)
- Horsforth in West Yorkshire (23,000)
- Kidlington in Oxfordshire (11,000)
- Lancing in West Sussex (19,000)
- Ruskington in Lincolnshire (5,169)
- Street in Somerset (11,000)
- Studley in Warwickshire (6,624)
- Wombourne in Staffordshire
In addition, Ashington in Northumberland was considered to be the "largest coal-mining village" in England.
