Talk:List of the largest villages in England

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Who exacly claims that Studley is the second largest village in England?.

I can tell you for a fact that it isnt even the second largest village in Warwickshire, both Polesworth and Bulkington are larger. G-Man 20:45, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Methley?

See it's wikipedia article (Methley) Gigitrix (talk) 20:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wombourne

Interestingly, the article on Wombourne claims that it is "officially the largest village in England". it's not even mentioned on this page. So, is it the largest or not? One of the pages must be wrong! Grutness...wha? 06:12, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So be bold! I'm surprised to see you of all people holding back! :) Put it on the list. And if you read the article, you'll see that they are probably all wrong. Or all right. And that it dosn't matter anyway. Naturenet | Talk 09:07, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wendover

The definition of what constitutes a village may be in dispute in the UK, but not what constitutes a town - Wendover in Buckinghamshire has had a town charter since 1464 and still holds it; it is therefore not a village and hasn't been for over 500 years. It has been removed from the article. -- Francs 2000 02:25, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wendover doesn't have a town council though. And really the definition of 'town' is as muddled as 'village', but by the legal definition of town (which is a parish that calls itself a town), it ain't one. Of course, that's a stupid definition, also. But I think this claim ought to be reinserted. Morwen - Talk 13:57, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure that's the legal definition? Aylesbury didn't have a town council until very recently and it's been the county town of Buckinghamshire since the mid 16th century. My understanding is that the legal definition of a town in the UK is that it should have a town charter or charter of incorporation; this is what the Towns of the United Kingdom article says is the official definition, and Wendover certainly does have a charter. -- Francs 2000

15:47, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd argue that if it doesn't have a mayor right now, then it isn't a legal town, despite the fact that it may have been one once. It doesn't necessarily have to have a parish council - could have Charter Trustees instead - a concept that was set up solely in order to keep places as towns! Compare the situation with Rochester, which isn't a city because it doesn't have a mayor. City and town are different levels of honorifics, but fundamentally they have the same origin and kind (honours granted on settlements by the king). I'm not saying this isn't a stupid definition, and I'm not saying we should use it. But I don't like your definition either, as it leads to lots of parliamentary boroughs that are today considered villages, being considered towns, too. Old Sarum is not a town. :p Morwen - Talk 19:41, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to say for the record that I think the mayor definition is a bit silly as that would mean that a number of places that are considered to be historic market towns in this area are not towns any more, and I'll leave it up to you to inform the local residents. I live in a town (Aylesbury) and we identify with the town charter and celebrate it every year; local places like Wendover and Winslow are considered by most locals to be towns and while they don't have mayors they do have charters. In my experience the people who tend to think of Wendover as a village tend to be the newcomers who move there because it's so picturesque and identify with the village idea because it fits with their rose-tinted view of the countryside</POV>. Right, rant over, let's just agree to disagree. -- Francs 2000

21:44, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Population

Ideally we need estimates all from the same source. Combining estimates from different sources is bad. Morwen - Talk 13:42, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely - I should have put in a health warning. Probably the 2001 census would be the best source - is there information available for each of these "villages" yet? Warofdreams talk 13:48, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Smallest town in England"

Until just now, the Fordwich article claimed that Fordwich is the smallest town in England. I've altered that to non-specific "is said to be". Googling, I find other claimants to be Manningtree, Winchelsea, Axbridge, Bishop's Castle, although it is unclear how many places make this claim on an official basis. Now, the issues above regarding the definition of 'town' make this tricky. Fordwich currently has a town council and used to be a borough, so has a good claim. Morwen - Talk 23:08, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I will categorically state now that I have no idea where the smallest town in the UK is. I'm probably sitting on it for all I know. ;-p -- Francs 2000

23:36, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My vote is Old Sarum! :) Morwen - Talk 08:28, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I did quite a bit of checking when I originally added that note to the Fordwich article. Fordwich is almost certainly the smallest place with a town council in England (or Wales) and seems to be the smallest town to claim to be the smallest town in England. Of course, this question is complicated by the lack of a good definition of "town". The smallest town ever could be Gatton - it only had seven voters to Old Sarum's ten! (reference: Unreformed House of Commons) Warofdreams talk 10:53, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

K. Have reverted self. Morwen - Talk 11:58, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Smallest village"

And I am reminded of the claim made in Ault Hucknall that it is the "smallest village in England"! Morwen - Talk 12:35, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Define "village" <vbg> -- Francs 2000

23:06, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I hope that if you've read the article you'll see that one cannot do so in this context. Naturenet | Talk 08:47, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bessacarr

Don't know if it's ever claimed the title but Bessacarr, just south-east of Doncaster, has a high population. The census counts it as a village, so it must be one of the largest. I expect that its population are too busy enjoying their private swimming pools to bother with something as parochial as this. :) Epa101 13:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Horsforth

When has Horsforth ever made claim to be a village? It has a town council, and everyone always refers to it as a town.

Why was it put back on? I threaten to take it off again unless someone explains why it's on here. Legally, it is a town, and most West Yorkshire people seem to call it a town. Epa101 19:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Street (Som)

Has an urban character though no town council. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.105.237.181 (talk) 20:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Update Villages

Street is now classified as a town according to http://www.glastonbury.gov.uk. How many other of these listing are classified by the govt as towns? Gazab1 18:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're right in one sense, but wrong in another. A fundamental point of the article is that such classifications are neither absolute nor even relevant. The government doesn't define towns or villages, and you could no doubt find evidence that most if not all the settlements listed are known as towns, villages and other things in different contexts. If somebody thinks their settlement is the largest village in England, that's probably reason enough to be on this list. I have removed your clean-up template. Naturenet | Talk 20:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot simply have a article on the largest village without even having one main and absolute deffinition of a village on which the majority of people agree on. Ok if the government doesn't define one but the definition on the page is one for new roads?!? Removing the clean-up template was pointless, any visitor can see that this article is basically a mess. Why would you visit the largest village in england article? To find out about the largest village in england of course! not a disscussion on what the largest village constiutes. So back to my first and main point. The article does need cleaning up and also we need a main definition. Gazab1 10:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is an encyclopaedia article, and it is not for us to decide which is the largest village. As it is a matter of many claims and counter-claims, we can summarise those claims and discuss why it is not possible to definitively declare anywhere the largest village in England. If we are to have a clean-up template, you will need to explain what needs cleaning up - the changes you suggest would be a big step backwards. What the article does need are far more references and possible changes to its rather informal tone. Warofdreams talk 16:28, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As a encyclopaedia I suggest that we should be aiming to get the facts correct? Yes? I suggest we filter the claims and counter-claims and actually produce a relevant article. I also suggest that we take a step backwards, a big one if need be and start again from the beginning to make sure it is correct. Gazab1 17:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gazab1 has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

I really don't understand what you are saying. There is no single "largest village in England". It would be false to pretend that we can write an article that tells people what it is. Just as with any other article, we must summarise the views which are available - not pretend that there is an agreement in the outside world which doesn't exist. Yes, we can work further on adding details on exactly what claims are made for each settlement, and if any other reports have attempted to decide which is the largest village in England, we can report that. But discussion of what constitutes a village should be exactly what the main point of the article is - the key fact is that there is no consensus as to what the largest village is. Warofdreams talk 18:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your positive contribution, Gazab1, and what a nice smile. I can understand your point of view but I don't entirely share it. I support the comments made by Warofdreams above. This article has had for some time a consensus shared by quite a few different editors and which is different to the new way of writing it that you're proposing. That certainly doesn't mean you're wrong, but it does mean that we'll need to discuss it quite carefully before we make the radical changes you're suggesting. You're very sensibly doing that now by engaging on the talk page, which is appreciated. But do bear with us as a big change like this is not usually quickly agreed.

The point of this article, like any encyclopaedic article, is to describe the thing it refers to insofar as that is possible. In this case there is some genuine difficulty in literally doing that. Wikipedia is not a place for resolving contentious issues. In the case of serious disagreement the policy is to describe the nature of the disagreement, not to attempt to sort it out one way or the other. Now in this instance the case is trivial, but the principle is the same. There is never, ever, going to be a real-world consensus on what the largest village in England is. So it would be artificial to either attempt to hold a debate amongst ourselves to resolve what the real world actually does think it is, or to simply decide which definition we prefer and use that. This makes me very cautious about your proposal, although I repeat that's not to say you're wrong at all. Perhaps you can help us by explaining in a bit more detail how your suggestion would fit with Wikipedia policy, and how you might deal with the issues we have raised?

Naturenet | Talk 18:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with some of the points. The aim I am trying to make is to overall make the article more relevant in the context its proposed. May I then suggest changing the heading from the "largest village in england" to the "largest villages in england" as this is more relevant to the context. Having read the policy although I can say it doesn't resolve this issue much. The real-world issue has no fix so I suggest if we cant change the content to fit the article, change the article (heading at least) to fit the content. Gazab1 10:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A sensible proposal. That way everyone gets what they think best. I've created a new page called Largest villages in England which redirects here. So anyone seaching for the largest villages will find this article too, just as you suggested. Thanks for your contributions and for helping to resolve the matter so amicably. Naturenet | Talk 15:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A redirect makes sense. Warofdreams talk 01:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is it Ewell?

Ewell has always been called "a village" for as long as I can remember it, yet has a population of 39,994 - nearly 13,000 larger than Epsom, despite the latter being the "town" in Epsom and Ewell. WOuld it qualify? Timrollpickering 14:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The smallest village called "Ireland" in England

I had seen a small video clip on probably Channel Four or some commonly available channel in UK. It mentioned that there was a smallest village called "Ireland" in England. That village had only three houses and a pub. I tried to obtain more details about this village, but could not get any inputs. The video clip was shown on TV in 2001.

If anyone gets more inputs regarding this small villgae, please let me know on [e-mail address removed]

Thanks in advance, Sagar Paradkar

I've removed your e-mail address, as leaving it here can lead to you getting spam. I suspect that your are after the village of Ireland, Bedfordshire, although we have very little information on it. Warofdreams talk 23:09, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

References / Own Research

This article badly needs some, and is currently of very little use to this encyclopedia. Yes there are 14 references, but EVERY claim on this page needs to be referenced, or it should be deleted. It doesn't need to be a claim that is proven to be true (as there clearly can't be 30 smallest villages), it just needs to reference that someone of reasonable authority has made that claim. Some of this page appears to be own research (eg largest towns without railway stations). Halsteadk (talk) 12:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update Kingsteignton

Kingsteignton is now a town (January 1, 2009) so I removed it from the list and added it as a kind of footnote at the end. The flying pasty (talk) 16:37, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Armthorpe

Armthorpe in South Yorkshire 2001 census population of 12,630 ^[1]

Surely this should be added to the list? 78.105.243.21 (talk) 18:49, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a source referring to it as the largest village in England? If so, then, it has grounds for inclusion, otherwise not. Warofdreams talk 18:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't need to claim it, the fact it is a village and the verifiable population figures ought to be enough 78.105.243.21 (talk) 19:54, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article is all about claims which have been made and the difficulty of defining the term. There are plenty of settlements larger than Armthorpe which are not towns, so it's not got any strong claim to the title, but if someone had claimed it was, there might be grounds for including it. Warofdreams talk 19:59, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So, in the best wikipedia tradition, all it really needs is some 'independent' two bit website and bob is your mothers brother. 78.105.243.21 (talk) 20:42, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to be encouraging here, and clearly any source would be better than no source, but either a reliable source, or one connected with the parish, would be good. Warofdreams talk 21:50, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/viewFullDataset.do?instanceSelection=03070&productId=779&$ph=60_61&datasetInstanceId=3070&startColumn=1&numberOfColumns=8&containerAreaId=790254

Irrelevant sources

Sources not only need to back up the population or area or other appropriate figure, but they need to back up that a claim has been made. I have removed 3 entries which either had irrelevant references or that didn't mention any claim. Re Nazeing, my edit summary implies I was looking at population but its "claim" was based on area - however the deletion stands as there is no mention of any claim that it's the largest under any criteria. Feel free to add these back in if their claim can be supported properly. Halsteadk (talk) 17:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved, no consensus. kotra (talk) 20:26, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Largest village in England → List of villages claiming to be the largest in England — Amazingly, after two Afd's, this article has somehow survived, seemingly because some people think that the fact there is passing mentions of the term in sources, that it is a notable topic in itself. I happen to think that's nonsense, as I outlined in the first Afd, and the article has no independent notability outside of individual village articles, and as a footnote to Village#United Kingdom, if anywhere (where much of the discussion of a definition is infact duplicated anyway). However, the Afd's stand though, unfortunately. But one thing that they were pretty clear on though, is that this is not a simple list of largest villages, that the notion that villages can ever be listed in this manner is a fantasy due to the vagueness of the classification, let alone the lack of any third party attempts to make such a list (a fact ignored in both Afds). They were clear that, if this article should exist, it merely has the potential of being a sourced discussion piece about the uses of the term and who claims it, (and isn't even halfway there yet), and it should have a title that reflects that nature. And that is obviously not 'Largest village in England', which not only suggests there is one, but worse, that anybody even attempts to define it. All this article currently is, is an essay piece full of OR, and a list of claims. So I tried to rename it accordingly, but it has been reverted by Colonel Warden, stating "keep it simple". So here we are. MickMacNee (talk) 15:52, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose move Many superlatives are difficult to define - the longest river in the world, for example - and there's nothing especially problematical about this case. The article seems to have been neglected and just needs work. I found that Sheffield still hadn't been added, for example, even though there are numerous sources about this.

As for the title, I prefer the current title of Largest village in England because it is succinct and it is the common name for this concept. We should not have the new title proposed because it seems to have a strident, tendentious tone and it is not the common name.

Colonel Warden (talk) 16:56, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Longest river in the world is a poor example to cite in defence. That issue actualy has a real world dispute, and various accepted definitions which are compared and discussed in third party sources. This article by comparison, has no evidence of anything of the sort, for this topic. The term exists, and this article is a passable attempt at listing the google results for its use referring to and in sources about single villages, but that's about it. There is no evidence this is a topic in of itself, or that any source bothers doing what this article does, which is discuss the utter futility of defining it, or attempting to compare and contrast competing claims. Suggesting that the fact the term appears and is used in single instances, therefore shows that it is somehow a common name for the subject of the article is way off base. The article is nothing more than an unsourced essay and a rundown of those google results. It's frankly crap, and the misleading and innacurate name only serves to encourage the sort of edits that keep it being crap, because it doesn't reflect the contents of the article, not what it is, or what people think it could be even if improved 100%. The only option here is to use a desriptive title. MickMacNee (talk) 17:52, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose move I endorse the first comments of Colonel Warden above. The proposer's motivations are immaterial but the language and justifications they used does not imply NPOV. There's no need for obscenity in this kind of discussion. It has the effect of undermining an argument, not supporting it. Because of this some readers could reasonably conclude that the proposed move is not intended to improve the article but is in fact a clumsy attempt to circumvent the AfD process. Furthermore I think that the arguments likely to be aired in this discussion have already been entirely exhausted in the AfD discussions, and there is nothing to be gained by revisiting them. Naturenet | Talk 11:50, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose move - the fact that it is not possible to identify one largest village in England is immaterial. The sources discuss the "largest village in England", whether they are claiming it for one settlement, rubbishing the possibility of applying it to anywhere, or using it essentially as a metaphor for Sheffield. The article title should be the most common name. Arguments about whether this is a valid topic at all should not be brought into a page move proposal; they are a matter for AfD, and this article has twice been nominated and kept on both occasions. Warofdreams talk 12:09, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The sources don't discuss it at all outside of merely mentioning it for single entries. That is why the entire prose portion of the article is unsourced. People can ascribe all the bad faith they want to the request, but please, let's not pretend the article contains things it simply doesn't contain. Infact, if we must start actually looking at the sources, a third Afd looks highly likely. I see just one source which can even be considered a reliable third party source of any relevance, and that is a three paragraph piece on cycling, hardly coverage of the supposed common name here. The rest are either dead, unreliabe, biased, or local hack scribbling. This article in its current state is junk, frankly. MickMacNee (talk) 13:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you consider the article fit for deletion say so and propose it through the process you have previously used, giving your reasons. If you believe it should be moved do the same. At present you have done neither sufficiently. Meanwhile it's not an appropriate use of other editors' time to debate with you (and the other supporters of a move and/or deletion) a proposal to move an article if that's not actually your intention. Naturenet | Talk 17:08, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is my intention to move it, and I have given reasons to move it. If these reasons aren't addressed by opposers, and people come up with fantasy versions of what the article says or cites currently, or could possibly ever say or cite, then that pretty much makes the debate pointless doesn't it? It certainly isn't a proper consensus to move or not move, it is just timewasting irrelevance. If people hadn't come up with such spurious arguments in the last two Afd's, I would put it up for a third one, but as it is, this article and its defenders seems to exist in an entirely alternate dimension, where people do not follow policies and do not talk about the actual article. So really, is it worth the time I ask myself? But then again, me going away only allows the kind of non-arguments made above be allowed to succeed, always a bad precedent, and ultimately leaves a crap article on the pedia, and that really does irk me. MickMacNee (talk) 19:02, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What point, exactly, do you want people to respond to? I understand that you don't think this topic merits an article, but a page move request is not the place to decide on that. You note that it is not a list of the largest villages in England (and, indeed, such an article would not be possible). If the title was "list of the largest villages in England", that would be inappropriate. As the title is "largest village in England", I would expect to find an article discussing claims to be the largest village in England - the title is perfect. "List of villages claiming to be the largest in England" would be a far worse title, because it is not nearly as common a phrase used in discussing the topic as the current title, it is unneccesarily wordy, it suggests that somehow the villages (parish councils?) themselves make the claim, which is not always the case, and although far from perfect, it does more than list the settlements about which this claim is made. Warofdreams talk 19:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If I click, 'Largest village in England', I expect either an article on the largest village sources agree is the one, or a sourced article containing the definitive list of contenders, and a reliably sourced discussion of the general issue of the definition and usage of the term in the title, as a topic. This thing, which you rather optimistically label as 'far from perfect', is neither. It doesn't even remotely come close. If I find a totally unsourced essay piece combined with a partial run-down of the Google results plucked from any old site when you search for the term, I expect to see that reflected in the title. Which is what is required by WP:NAME, which demands the title reflect the topic and the contents, neutraly and accurately, because we are an encyclopoedia, not a web host of original research or unsourced ramblings, where people can just write anything about a term they see around the web, give it a misleading title, and call that an article. This would be a concise title for the topic I describe above, if anyone is ever going to attempt to write that article rather than continue to pretend it could be done. For the topic it is now, it is misleading and innacurate. MickMacNee (talk) 20:01, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I repeat, this is not the place to discuss whether the topic merits an article. It is also not the place to discuss the current quality of the article - that is utterly irrelevant to any decision on a potential page move. I think that you are trying to make the case that no comprehensive article on this subject could ever be written. That is the case with almost every topic in Wikipedia; it is equally true of list articles (although this article is moving away from being a list, which is entirely appropriate). For example, we have an article entitled Oldest people, not "list of the oldest verified people and some disputed ones who claimed to be very old".

The current title perfectly summarises what this article aims to cover; it is not in any way misleading. I'm sorry to hear that you would expect to find a definitive list of contenders for the title; such a thing does not exist and so anyone expecting to find one should read an article explaining the situation and listing notable contenders. Warofdreams talk 20:26, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And if your concern is that people merely wouldn't be able to find this article if it was moved to its proper accurate name, then that is what redirects are for, which are more than sufficient for those times when a rough guess will get you to the vaguely right article, which has an accurate name so as not to immediately mislead you into thinking you've found something that you haven't - NAME prevents readers having to read the entire contents of a poor article before they realise the name does not reflect any reasonable person's assumption of what such a named an article might contain. MickMacNee (talk) 20:06, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've listed four problems with your proposed title; that is not one. Warofdreams talk 20:26, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A definitive list of contenders does not exist, because pretending Wikipedia could ever write an aricle to satisfy this title properly, with an accurate, sourced, complete article on the actual topic, rather than a crappy list of Google hits, is an utter fantasy. I see no evidence you have even the first idea that this topic is not a real, discussed, topic. The examples of similar articles being offered up here only illustrate this title's total denigration by its content further, they don't in any way support the garbage that is this article, they cover actual topics with real, sourced, information, not Google hits and junk. MickMacNee (talk) 20:41, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Infact, it is total and utter wikilawyering to even suggest that a discussion of the title is not the venue to discuss whether an article on the topic can be written, they are one and the same thing, the issues are indivisible. MickMacNee (talk) 20:44, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is going in circles. If you cannot separate the two concepts, then nominate this article for deletion, which would allow a proper discussion on that issue. Warofdreams talk 21:35, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support a move to a "List of" namespace. This is a list. Will always be a list. And hard to define. For rivers we have List of rivers by length so List of villages in England by size would seem appropriate (and could contain lists by area, population and other measurements that claim "largest").--ZayZayEM (talk) 13:06, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Another direction

The problem with this article is that the sources usually discuss the concept in the context of a particular place and so we lack a good basis for the overall structure. So, we should consider what might be a better context for this information. The current title focuses upon the superlative but what of the general mass of English villages? Might this be a better basis for an article?

First, we should consider the notability of the topic. We soon find that there are hundreds of books devoted to the topic: English village, English villages. These seem ample for our needs.

Second, we should consider whether we have an article about this already. English village and English villages are both blue links but one is a redirect to the other and you'll be surprised to find what we have there. This is not what our readership expects under that title, I fancy.

So, what say we think big and construct an article about English villages in general? We can push the existing content aside and then start to build. The article we have here might form a reasonable section within this general article as it would fit well alongside general discussion of village size and status for which our sources should supply good material.

Colonel Warden (talk) 21:05, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We have a few paragraphs at Village#United Kingdom. The redirect Villages in England also exists, and goes to yet another article. Warofdreams talk 21:33, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Query

Whilst as the article mentions, it is difficult to define precisely what a village is, I wonder what the largest village in England is that:

(a) is not classified by the post office as a post town (b) has a parish council rather than a town council (c) is not conjoined to, or in close proximity to, a larger urban area

JOhn —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.8.174.136 (talk) 10:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(c) is the one which is very hard to judge. Out of the villages named in the article, Wombourne is the largest which meets the other two criteria so, if you agree it is sufficiently far from the West Midlands conurbation, it might be the answer to your question. Then again, Rossington is larger, and Bessacarr larger still - but they are quite close to Doncaster. As the article suggests, there's no definitive "largest village". Warofdreams talk 14:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

212.8.174.136, the article says nothing about it because this isn't a real topic. It's an editor collected pile of low-if-not-non existent reliability of sources, which are here because they simply mention the phrase and came up in a Google search, and nothing else. It contains no sources at all, let alone of any reliability, discussing anything close to 'what's the largest village in England', or even 'look how difficult it is to define the largest village in England'. Hell, you won't even find this basic list in a reputable source, except of course mirrors of Wikipedia. Anything else you read in this article comes from nowhere but other editors personal opinions. As such, if you have a personal opinion of your own on which village meets your a,b,c, criteria, you can pretty much add it. Trust me when I say you wouldn't be degrading the quality of this article one single bit if you did. Not now, nor even ten years into the future by the looks of it. Even though no original research and verifiability are two of our core content policies. MickMacNee (talk) 16:18, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I've said before, you're welcome to nominate the article for deletion if you don't think it has a place in Wikipedia. An annual complaint on the talk page won't achieve anything. Warofdreams talk 16:33, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You know full well that's been tried twice before and you know full well that this article was kept despite the fact nobody offered a single decent argument to retain it in its current form that wasn't complete and utter rubbish, variations of ILIKEIT or USEFUL or INTERESTING or NOHARM of VAGUEWAVE, or worse, straight up lies about what sources do and don't say about this topic, and indeed, whether they were even reliable. You were the worst offender on that score. You stated there were plenty of hits in Google Books discussing the 'notable' topic. So where are they then? Why aren't they in the article two years later? Why are you completely and utterly unwilling to accept as basic fact that this article's references section is a list of Google results for the term, barely any of which could even be called a reliable source, and nothing else? When are you ever going to give a policy backed and cogent argument that this is what makes this a valid article on Wikipedia? When are you going to face up to the reality that you have never ever even attempted to defend this article using the actual truth of what it is and what it contains. This non-reply was just the latest example of that, others are above. Infact, if you go look, most of the keep votes weren't defending this article at all, they all pointed out that it is complete wrongness in its current form, and should probably be rewritten into an article about villages using, y'know, some sources, or saying it should be properly recast as what it is - a list of claims connected by nothing at all in the sources except the phrase - even the closing admin stated that case for renaming in one of them. You can see by its continued existance in this state, with the only activity being you holding OR seminars on the talk page, that all of those comments and the Afds were a complete and utter waste of time. For a laugh, I just might nominate it for Good Article status, and see if you accept the inevitable 100% negative feedback it would so surely recieve. Or I might just start removing all the unsourced content, which policy entitles me to do. I shall of course leave all the 'sourced' content (basically the table of google results), although as I'm not willing to see readers be deceived into believing this is an actual proper Wikipedia list, per policy I'd also include full explanations as to what they do actually say, and from what position of authority and neutrality (mostly none) that they say it. If you do actually have any reliable, secondary sources to support this as a topic, I suggest you go find them and add what they say about it. Because I really don't think you're going to like what comes out of that improvement process, and I'm certainly not going to stand for being messed around if people try to revert me without justification. The reality is, if you did object and were asked to explain how my edits are wrong or against policy, you wouldn't really have a leg to stand on. MickMacNee (talk) 19:00, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You keep saying the same things, verging now toward personal attacks, and don't address any points anyone else has made. I'll leave this be until you either make some constructive suggestions for improving the article, or if (as you claim) that is not possible, you nominate it for deletion. Warofdreams talk 14:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your only point was, 'why not nominate it for deletion?' And I am pretty sure I answered that above. If you had any other point, it's not clear to me. You can wait if you want, resting on yet another non-reply, but I won't be simply making suggestions, I'll simply act as I've outlined above. I've no intention of engaging in further fruitless and obstructive non-discussion here. I've given you the reading material you will require if you intend to get in my way. MickMacNee (talk) 18:18, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So long as you act in a collaborative manner and request citations for material before removing it, that would be a big improvement. Warofdreams talk 13:03, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The whole article has been tagged for lacking citations since August 2008. The lack of any sources at all, let alone reliable independent secondary citations, to support the actual topic of the article such as it is discussed in text (i.e. not simply the idea that single mentions of the title can be found in Google results) has been raised in the 2 previous Afd's also, both held in 2009. It's now March 2011. I'd say that's a sufficient amount of requesting to show good faith in a collaborative environment. You are the person who clearly stated at Afd that such references exist. Rather than being in the spirit of collaboration, this request for further notice from you can now be reasonably interpreted as an attempt to stall the process of actual article improvement by stopping others removing material that on current evidence, will never be cited. Per policy, the burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. MickMacNee (talk) 14:47, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't around during the last two AfDs, but I would !vote delete if it came up again. The sources for each individual "village" are reasonable enough, but nothing appears to discuss this topic as a whole. GNews results are rather telling: seven hits, all relating to different villages/towns, four of them letters or blogs - and the Book results are similar, including several villages that this article doesn't even mention at present. Perhaps something better exists, but if so it's beyond my ability to find it. Alzarian16 (talk) 15:49, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Churchdown

Churchdown also claims this title. And actually, with 11,000 inh. it should also beeing listed, shouldn#t it ?Flk-Brdrf (talk) 18:08, 17 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Harlow

"The old simple definitions of 'towns' were settlements with:

   town charters (see the list of towns in England); or
   with a regular market.

These two features have been long surpassed by large 'new towns' on former villages such as Harlow which have neither feature yet have virtually no claims that they are villages"

...only Harlow has both - Harlow market and appears to have originally been chartered in 1445... https://archives.history.ac.uk/cmh/gaz/essex.html#H , so is a bad example Aboodoo (talk) 23:15, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[1] ttp://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/viewFullDataset.do?instanceSelection=03070&productId=779&$ph=60_61&datasetInstanceId=3070&startColumn=1&numberOfColumns=8&containerAreaId=790254

[1]