Author's summary of the book.
Compiled & written by Roy Turner

There is nothing particular about the village of Compton Pauncefoot, except possibly it name. So why bother to write a book about it? The answer seems to be that people who have had ancestors here and the present inhabitants have a curiosity about where the village came from, how their ancestors lived and the significance of a few historical markers that are left. The book is an attempt to tell the story of the village, what has happened to it since its foundation and how has evolved into the place it is today. If I had succeeded in doing all those things, it would have been quite a remarkable achievement, needless to say I haven’t. The problem is that since Compton Pauncefoot is not famous, there are very few written records, even most of the papers of the main estate, belonging for many years to the Hunt family, do not seem to exist.

That being said, what I have attempted to do is to tell a story with the scanty evidence that I have. It is possible to say something about all the eras from the Norman Conquest onwards. There is slight evidence of medieval farming and of the terrible Civil War, where Compton was squeezed between the two sides. In the two oldest buildings there is some evidence of that period and also in the list of rectors. The Georgian period sees the main house and the Rectory transformed into classic Georgian houses. The advent of the industrial and agricultural revolutions produced real changes.For example gloving, which was a traditional cottage industry for women, disappeared due to mechanisation; as indeed did many agricultural labouring jobs. The latter continued into the twentieth century and today a farm is run with fewer workers and many more machines. The working people of the past figure little the book, since we know, in the main, only their names. Although some remained in the village, others left for other parts of England and, the more adventurous, faraway. Fortunately we have been able to trace a few of their descendants and the story of their ancestors is told in as much detail as possible.

Today, incomers occupy the village and the days of a strong self-sufficient community, the blacksmith and heavy horses are long gone. Nevertheless, the village maintains its charm, probably neater and tidier than in the days when it was a working village.