The End of Tradition : Country Life in Central Surrey

London: Routledge & Keegan Paul. Very Good/Very Good. 1978. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 0710088442 Dust jacket complete, unclipped, slight fading to spine. Original cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. Map end papers. No ownership marks. Illustrated. 231 pages clean and tight. The End of Tradition is the recent history of four Surrey villages, the Horsleys and Clandons, close to London but isolated and protected from it by the Green Belt. Towards the end of the last century, a period of rapid change began in rural England as a new way of life centred on the nearby towns and cities replaced a traditional rural village life. Estates were broken up, agricultural life declined, village schools and parish councils were set up, and the pervasive influence of the village squire disappeared. But the coming of the railway, and later the motor car, provoked the most fundamental changes, for the isolation of the village was ended. The railway linked the villages of Surrey with the metropolis of London, enabling `commuters' to enjoy the pleasures of a `rural' life and the amenities of London. In exclusive housing estates of detached homes in culs-de-sac, the exceptionally high status of the villages was enhanced by the efforts of the newcomers to protect their new style of life through the most comprehensive countryside protection system in Britain. Their perceptions of rural life are set against those of the local people, who sometimes appear to be no more than rustic props to an urban way of life. The effect of these social divisions, more rigid here than in many similar commuter villages, encompasses every facet of village social life. .