I cannot be alone in this, since the BBC Vicar of Dibley was based on a pastiche of well founded character types that must crop up everywhere, but our village is a damn good fit.
We have those that grew up in the fields and woods, now they are 80 year old children, not moved too far from scuffed knees and scrumping (indeed I think some returning in that circle of life). Those that own local farms, others moved away and came back when they could, some crept from local town to village or those like ourselves, dropped in from urban climbs to the rural life because we both wanted to and were lucky enough to have the means to perform it.
It set my wife and I to thinking, we're exploring local history by our walks, back to the Romans in places, a wonderful example being the 'Black Field' in another hamlet called Stainfield (Stone Field), it marks the site of a small Roman town on King Street a South Lincolnshire Roman route. In years gone by the Georgian market days in Bourne were supplemented by girls selling Roman coins and pot shards dug up in this field to provide income additional to produce. The implication is small hoards of coins, often associated with Temples and Shrines to local British and Roman gods.
It would have been a cosmopolitan place, site of Iron Age activity, gentrified by outsiders, made official by the Romans, retired soldiers from the 9th Legion in Lincoln perhaps. They would have had the same character types as today.
I like to think of Davidius Maximus from Londinium and spouse perhaps making a happy home here in 213AD. He would have been a scribe and administrator, happy with his lot and perhaps leaving something for us to find one day.
Remind me to bury some graffito from 2013.
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