POPULATION
The population in 1086 was about 120. At the taking
of the Protestation Oath in 1641 it was about 283. By the time of the 1801
National Census it had increased to 510. By 1901 it had risen to 827, and
by 1998 it had reached 1,050. A survey undertaken by pupils of the
village school in 1968 produced the following statistics: 38% of the population
then went out to work, 25% of the inhabitants were retired, 25.5% of the
inhabitants were under the age of 18, 70 dwellings in the parish had but
one occupant.
HOUSING
In 1851 there were 174 dwellings within the parish.
There are now 711 homes, though some 50 of these are holiday residences
only. There are 41 flats. The oldest cottage, once a 'long-house', probably
dates from the Fifteenth Century. There is one cottage (now only half its
original size) which dates from the third quarter of the Sixteenth Century.
There are several cottages and farm-houses dating from the Seventeenth
Century, when wattle, daub and thatch were replaced by stone, but almost
all of them have been modified in some way. There are many more from the
Eighteenth Century, some with date-stones or original deeds, and an equal
number from the Nineteenth Century.
Of the two great houses in the parish Durnford
House was originally built in 1725 (as the date-stone on the architrave
of the front door records), but was totally demolished and rebuilt with
the same ashlar and in roughly the same style of architecture in 1952:
whereas Leeson House which was built in 1805 has not been greatly altered,
except by additions.
Originally
the village had but one street, now known as the High Street. Several side-roads
have been added, one (North Street) in 1852, the others during the past
77 years: The Hyde (begun in 1924), Durnford Drove, Gypshayes, Tom's Field
Road, Steppes Hill (finished in 1977), St. George's Close, Three Acre Lane,
Gully, Steppes, Capston Field, The Old Malthouse Lane, Mount Pleasant Lane,
Garfield Lane and Serrell's Mead.
Capston Field, Steppes and Three Acre Lane contain
Council Housing Estates. The architect of the latter won a national award
for the sensitive design of the cottages.
