In 1898 J. Arthur Gibbs commented ‘Most of the cottages are kept scrupulously clean; they have an air of homely comfort which calls forth admiration of all strangers. The children, too, when they go to church on Sundays, are dressed with a neatness and good taste that are simply astonishing when one recalls the income of a labourer on the Cotswolds — seldom, alas! averaging more than fourteen shillings a week. A boy of twelve years of age is able to keep himself; earning about five shillings a week. To watch a boy of fourteen years managing a couple of great strong cart-horses, either at the plough or with the wagons, is a sight to gladden the heart of man.’
In this book more than one hundred and fifty of the best photographic images surviving from the period are reproduced together with contemporary descriptions of the Cotswold people and their style of life. Much is in the dialect of the time and a detailed glossary is supplied for the less obvious words and phrases.
Evocative descriptions with the pen are counterpoised by the beautiful photographs reproduced in sepia. The whole blend in pictures and voices of the time gives us sight of the labouring men and the farmer’s boy together with countless other characters that made up the Cotswolds when it was a sleepy byway of England.
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