10 MAY 1930, Page 14

The relic signs of a busy community add to the

wonder. Next door are, or were, two long, magnificent avenues leading from nowhere to nowhere. Numbers of old fish-ponds succeed one another down the slope. The immense and splendid church, the foundations of vanished houses, a mysterious mound and moat—these and much else make it certain that once in forgotten years the place swarmed with

people. But probably at no time has the population fallen so rapidly as in this century and the end of last. The village is about half the size it was a generation ago. A neighbouring and more pretentious village is just about a third of what it was in 1900. The product from the land has fallen in about the same percentage. What are we going to do about it ?