KENT: Only two broad fields separate the churchyard of Ash from the flat timber facades of one of the “neighbourhoods” of the newly-created village of Ash Green that is rising from the wet clays of the downland plateau. To the south lies a church, a seventeenth century house and a farm linked by a narrow lane with a line of cottages straggling along a roadside with a pub at the end of the road. To the north stands the assertive gathering of modern houses grouped round a two-storey shopping precinct, a miniature new town bearing the word “village” proudly at its centre. The rural scene survives in a neglected orchard, a scrubby valley destined for parkland treatment and a fine ash preserved in a roundabout. The lanes are losing the comfort of their confining banks, making way for new pavements and open views for the speeding commuter.
It is unfair to make judgments yet, for villages have been planned before; time and weather have made them a pleasure to the eye. But a question keeps nagging at the mind, what is a village? Perhaps it is a particular conjunction of buildings which has a specific relationship with the rural area around it. It is the focus of country life. Yet there are many Kentish villages that have spawned an offshoot of “executive-type” houses and many of the loveliest cottages are occupied by townsmen. The farmworkers live down the road in the council houses. New Ash Green only states more boldly what is whispered elsewhere that the village, the rural community that we once knew, is dead.
