Deserted Villages

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About Deserted Villages

There are literally thousands of acknowledged, and hundreds of unknown "vills" around the UK. Usually the result of desertion in medieval times due to a variety of factors, anything from enclosure to disease, soil exhaustion, climatic variation, engorgement and in a few cases erosion, many have all but vanished, leaving only surface pottery finds and paper trails in libraries as a clue to their existence. There are however a great many that leave evidence of their once-being in the form of visible physical archeology on the surface of fields, in the form of "Hollow ways, Housing Platforms, tracks, trails and ponds. Occasionally there are remnants of field boundaries and patterns in the landscape that give them away. There are even a few with Ruins, particularly Remnants of Churches. There are also Shrunken villages where a settlement had contracted often leaving evidence in place names and field markings.

If you have any Photographs of any DMVs around the UK, including detail shots signage, fieldmarks, physical evidence, archeological digs or just shots of the site, please add them to the group. Photographs can be as much about documentary recording of sites as they are about art, either will do, this is intended as a recording and repository group, that may aid people in further research into sites such as these, It will also hopefully give us a chance to show our interpretations of the sites and how we see them now.

One point that has already been raised is that the use of the word "medieval" is restrictive, as such the name of the group has been changed to accommodate, Many sites are medieval hence the term DMV, but equally so many sites are post medieval, and desertions continue even now particularly in areas such as The Thetford Battle ground which contains modern desertions and medieval ones, Likewise around Lulworth in Dorset, and also with the loss of settlements in areas like The East Anglian Coast where Eccles, Dunwich and Shipden have already succumbed to the sea.


If you feel inclined please Geotag your pictures. It just helps build up a pattern of the spread of these places.