Holmwood Common: a place of 'thieves, vagabonds and idlers' or 'a very paradise'?
The Lost Villages: A history of the Holmwoods
by Kathy Atherton
From Stone-age hunter, medieval farmer, smuggler, horse-thief, rioting labourer and Victorian bar-fighter to modern-day porn queen: the Lost Villages tells the story of the villages and villagers of the Holmwood. Meet the victims of runaway wagons and out-of-control horse-buses, the mystery skeleton and the Great Train Robbers. Encounter the coach-driving millionaire, the Prince Regent's divorce lawyer and Queen Victoria's favourite sculptor. And discover the 'Holmwood Campaign' of 1912 when Holmwood hit the headlines and businesses feared for their windows on an invasion of suffragettes.The Lost Villages traces the history of Holmwood's Common from manorial 'waste' to the National Trust and of the road from turnpike to dual carriageway. It examines the development of the landscape that we see today and follows the changing fortunes of the houses, farms and communities of Blackbrook, North, South and Mid Holmwood and of the farms and mansions running down towards Beare Green and up the slopes of Leith Hill. Specially prepared maps and drawings are accompanied by scores of archive photographs, portraits and paintings never before seen in print.
ISBN 978-0-9560766-0-1 Published 2008 112 pages; 145 illustrations (50 in colour) £10
