The Common Stream

by Rowland Parker

This is the story of a village in East Anglia, astride its common stream, a saga of continuity and change which stretches back across a landscape of two thousand years. It took Rowland Parker thirteen years of detective work to piece this jigsaw together, combing his way through records of archaeological excavations and manor court rolls, and collecting stories at the pub alongside his scholarly inspection of old wills and land tax returns. The intense focus he brought to his work was amplified by his desire to tell the story of the common man, his feuds and fun, his farms, fights, fornications, and families.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

304 pages, Paperback

Published June 9, 2016

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous. I had worries in the first part as he filled in the little of what is known of the human landscape of Roman Britain with conjecture, but at least he was clear about what was conjecture and what was real and as the centuries progressed the detail gathered from what is documented took over bit by bit and he presented the dry detail from the village records and law reports with verve and persuasion. He came across himself as someone it would be great to know - humour, intellegence, imagination and a good helping of rebellion and free thinking.

[Cherie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book so much that we went to Foxton, near Ely, Cambridgeshire, and looked up the author. We were able to track down his Cottage on the Green in this small village, noted in his signature of his acknowledgments. He was deceased but his daughter was home. We had a delightful visit.

The author wrote this book much the way I wrote mine, known in local parlance as “the cemetery book”: creating a history based on the people found in the local records. This book reminded me so much of my own, and it was so well done, that I just had to meet the author. His daughter was rather astounded when we turned up at her door. We were astounded that we found it and she was there!

Though his work covered two thousand years and mine only one century, they both cover the full time of settlement of the subject area. The author's sources were oral reminiscence, manor court rolls, land tax returns, wills and archeological excavation. Mine were tombstone epitaphs, newspaper obituaries and stories, mortuary records, state death records, wills, court records, deeds, census records, photographs, personal interviews and family genealogies. The point of both books was the same: to illuminate a small, local history worth knowing.