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The Common Stream
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.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
304 pages, Paperback
Published June 9, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 7, 2016
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.
April 13, 2026
The Common Stream is an interesting book wrapped up in a slightly old fashioned core - it sits somewhere between a narrative and a social history, focusing around the existence of a single village in Cambridgeshire and its travails over the last 2000 years.
I suspect your mileage on this will depend both on your preference for social history (and particularly agricultural history) and the style of writing one prefers. The author published in the 70s and was born before the First World War, and with that comes a writing style which reflects that - it brings with it both his experience, his mindset and indeed his biases for rural life.
This shouldn't be mistaken for blind nostalgia, a lack of humanity or a driven conservatism, but as the author admits himself, this isn't a topic upon which he feels he needs to hold back on, and while he's clear about his use of sources, he's also fairly sure about his inferences and conclusions in a manner which can occasionally grate, and certain broad sweeps of the brush about the Common Man of the path might lead to the odd raised eyebrow or muffled gasp.
Giving a score to this is tough because I think it very much depends on the sort of person you are and what you're looking for - I can imagine some people finding it fascinating, insightful, light without being lightweight and a pleasure to read, and others to consider it thuddingly boring, occasionally uneven in terms of its narrative and willingness to jump around, or scratching a surface into which they'd like to dig deeper. Personally, I found it interesting without being explosive, and easy to finish without wanting much more of it.
I suspect your mileage on this will depend both on your preference for social history (and particularly agricultural history) and the style of writing one prefers. The author published in the 70s and was born before the First World War, and with that comes a writing style which reflects that - it brings with it both his experience, his mindset and indeed his biases for rural life.
This shouldn't be mistaken for blind nostalgia, a lack of humanity or a driven conservatism, but as the author admits himself, this isn't a topic upon which he feels he needs to hold back on, and while he's clear about his use of sources, he's also fairly sure about his inferences and conclusions in a manner which can occasionally grate, and certain broad sweeps of the brush about the Common Man of the path might lead to the odd raised eyebrow or muffled gasp.
Giving a score to this is tough because I think it very much depends on the sort of person you are and what you're looking for - I can imagine some people finding it fascinating, insightful, light without being lightweight and a pleasure to read, and others to consider it thuddingly boring, occasionally uneven in terms of its narrative and willingness to jump around, or scratching a surface into which they'd like to dig deeper. Personally, I found it interesting without being explosive, and easy to finish without wanting much more of it.
March 12, 2022
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.
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.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews