For most of human history, we were rural folk. Our daily lives were bound up with working the land, living within the rhythm of the seasons. We poured our energies into growing food, tending to animals and watching the weather. Family, friends and neighbours were often one and the same. Life revolved around the village and its key spaces and places—the church, the green, the school and the marketplace. We all share this common heritage and yet we hear so little about it. Rural life seems oddly invisible in the records—the daily routine of the peasant, the farmer and the craftsperson could never compete with the glamour of city life, war and royal drama. Records are absent. Lives unrecorded. Stories untold. And yet there is one way we can learn about our rural past. Objects provide a direct route into the history of the countryside that no document can match; artefacts, in their tangibility, are touchstones that breathe life into its history. Whether it's farming tools or children's toys, domestic objects or strange curios, the everyday objects made and used by the people who occupied the land reveal fascinating insights into an often-forgotten way of life. Birth, death, celebration, work, crime, play, medicine, beliefs, diet and our relationship with nature can all be read from these remnants of our past.
