Alnham : In The 20th Century And Beyond

Church Gate AlnhamThe development of the village in the twentieth century can be traced in the photographs and maps reproduced in this study. Comparison of the 2nd, 3rd and later editions of the Ordnance Survey demonstrates the layout of the village changed relatively little in these years.

The only significant new structure shown on the 3rd edition Ordnance Survey published in 1921 is the War Memorial Hall built just to the north of the school beside the road to Scrainwood, a testament to the terrible conflict of the previous decade and the human cost the Great War inflicted in small rural communities like Alnham.

The overall picture during the 20th century is one of a gradually declining population. Mechanisation and the decline in farming incomes mean that agriculture no longer employs the bulk of the village's population. Two of the farms in the village are now disused, with Castle Farm having been converted into two cottages and renamed Pennywells.

A definitive history of Alnham in this period remains to be written. Such a project, most appropriately undertaken by the local community, could incorporate a range of map, photographic, census and other documentary evidence.

Perhaps more importantly, however, through the collation and recording of oral testimonies and recollections it would be able to capture the personalities who enriched the life of Alnham in the last century, just as David Dippie Dixon was able to do for the village and the wider valley in the 19th century, an achievement which has made his history of Whittingham Vale (1895) such a sought-after classic - a local history in the truest sense.