Several places claim to be the largest village in England. This title is disputed as there is no standard definition of a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

as distinct from a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

and 'largest' can refer to population or area. A typical contender is Lancing in

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

with a population of around 19,000. Whilst Lancing might be described as a

in everyday use, it has not formally taken on this status and, in this case with three tiers of local government, it has a parish council rather than a

town council A town council, city council or municipal council is a form of local government for small municipalities. Usage of the term varies under different jurisdictions. Republic of Ireland Town Councils in the Republic of Ireland were the second t ...

. Also, it has a village hall instead of a town hall. All claimants must avoid having had a

town charter A city charter or town charter (generically, municipal charter) is a legal document (''charter'') establishing a municipality such as a city or town. The concept developed in Europe during the Middle Ages. Traditionally the granting of a charter ...

or licence to hold a market from the Crown. Many other villages are in a similar position. Some of the claimants below, such as Cottingham,

Great Baddow Great Baddow is an urban village and civil parish in the Chelmsford borough of Essex, England. It is close to the city of Chelmsford, and, with a population of over 13,000,Lancing and

Rawmarsh Rawmarsh (locally ) is a large village in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, in South Yorkshire, England. Historically within the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is north-northeast from Rotherham town centre and south-southwest of Swinton. ...

, are part of larger urban areas and it can be contended that such claimants are suburbs or 'suburban villages' rather than 'standalone villages' which have a clear surrounding open space buffer zone. The old simple definitions of a

is a settlement with: *

s (see the list of towns in England); or *with a regular

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, an ...

. These two features have been long surpassed by large '

new towns A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

' on former villages such as Harlow which have neither feature yet have virtually no claims that they are villages. The claim is therefore complicated by disputes over what renders a village a ''

'', the usual trichotomy in current use of British English being village, town or city.

Typical factors

Definitions can refer to history of population growth or popular formulae based on types and quantities of key buildings (e.g. schools, retailers, railway/tram station, more than one church or community hall), limited business parks and maximum limits to the density of housing. The few large

dispersed settlement A dispersed settlement, also known as a scattered settlement, is one of the main types of settlement patterns used by landscape historians to classify rural settlements found in England and other parts of the world. Typically, there are a numb ...

s, historically tied to one church community, and major changes to boundaries allow more elaborate claims. A third common criterion is simply stating it is a 'village' in a nameplate or whole community organisation, which leads to city district such as

Blackheath, London Blackheath is an area in Southeast London, straddling the border of the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Lewisham. It is located northeast of Lewisham, south of Greenwich, London, Greenwich and southeast of Charing Cross, ...

having a strong claim.

Impact of postal towns and boroughs

The country is split up into postal towns: settlements from village to city scale that can contrast markedly, but are carefully cited by some village contenders to rule out other villages. Others point to the fact that a rival village is in a

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle A ...

Parish criterion

The typical English local government district contains a variety of settlements and, while planning law encourages the existence of buffers, the term village has no formal use and wards are not permanently fixed.

Civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

es exist in many such districts to add an extra rung to local government, with fewer major changes – they can contain divorced villages, neighbourhoods hamlets, often based on old ties to what was one community, an

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

which may be lost, such as by the building of a

motorway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...

Popular definitions and changes

Popularly, many settlements are described both as a town and a village by different people and/or can change over small areas. For example,

Hebden Bridge Hebden Bridge is a market town in the Upper Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, England. It is west of Halifax and 14 miles (21 km) north-east of Rochdale, at the confluence of the River Calder and the Hebden Water. The town is the largest ...

in West Yorkshire is widely considered a "town"As described in their articles according to WP:CONSENSUS and WP:UKCITIES guidelines yet its population is half that of Birstall in the same county, most organisations of which and writers about which describe it as a village. Furthermore, settlements have a tendency to become denser and/or expand wider and, when they do, many residents may prefer to think of their home as a village rather than a town, and institutions such as a

village green A village green is a common open area within a village or other settlement. Historically, a village green was common grassland with a pond for watering cattle and other stock, often at the edge of a rural settlement, used for gathering cattle t ...

village hall A village hall is a public building in a village used for various things such as: United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, a village hall is usually a building which contains at least one large room (plus kitchen and toilets), is owned by a local ...

will tend to retain the name that they were given when the settlement was smaller. Since 1974, separation of rural settlements from urban settlements has not been important for local authorities themselves, and became less so with the new top-level authorities created that year e.g.

Bessacarr Bessacarr () is a suburb on the south-east edge of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. Consisting of mostly private residential development from the 1960s onward, it also contains some of the most expensive property in Doncaster, around St W ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and metropolitan county, metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of City of Doncaster, Doncaster and City of Sh ...

was not part of the town of

Doncaster Doncaster (, ) is a city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, it is the administrative centre of the larger City of Doncaster. It is the second largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield. Doncaster is situated in ...

before 1974; it is often spoken of as a suburb of Doncaster now, but, where described as a village today, then it was a ward with Cantley having 14,408 people in 2011.

Consensus

Such difficulties in measurement, and desires for different organisations to be called a town or a village, mean that the media has been free to pick whichever criteria it sees fit when choosing whether to describe a settlement as a town or a village."City's Green Belt is at Risk Like Never Before"
''The Oxford Mail''. 7 November 2013

Contenders

Places for which this claim has been made, and the reported population in the 2011 census (most recent all households census) include:

References

External links

UK government definition of rural and urban areas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Largest Village In England *Largest

Villages A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...