Modern Harley

Since 1972

The Ordnance Survey map of 1972 shows a very different Harley than the village of today. The scatter of houses is wider and there are fewer of them but the layout of the village is the least that has changed. 

However in the last 50 years the essential character of the village has fundamentally shifted. Harley can now no longer be described as an agricultural village.

Since the death of Jim Brookshaw in 2002 and the end of his tenancy from Raby Estates, for the first time there have been no working farms with farmhouses in the village. Rowley House Farm is the now the only operating farm, along with Merryfields Farm about a mile up the Kenley road.

As a consequence, the former agricultural barns and buildings in the village have been converted into houses and new houses have been built. As at 2018, 18 new houses have been built, 9 barns have been converted and there have been at least 5 extensions and renovations. 

In less than four decades the face of Harley has distinctly changed. The mixture and style of houses is not consistent. Timber framed early 17^th C thatched is mixed with 20^th C modern brick and other styles, but because the road layout has been retained intact and the siting of the new houses has been confined to infill fronting these roads, rather than groups of new houses or worse, new estates built with no relation to the old, the village character has retained much of its charm and integrity. Fields, still adjoin village roads and gardens, so that sheep and horses graze close by. The buildings new and old coalesce and group in interesting visual combinations.

The Village of Harley is now a Conservation Area. The Planning document stresses the importance of retaining the existing ancient road pattern and that the village should be protected against any damaging future development.  

The Church retains its major presence in the centre of the village. The Village School has become the Village Hall and in 2010 was partly rebuilt. It provides an essential base for the continuing social life of the village, which has not become, as many other villages have, a lifeless dormitory.

Now, the only sign of Harley’s agricultural past are the massive pieces of farm machinery which are regularly towed by tractors up and down Domas Lane, serving the large areas of agricultural land at Rowley and beyond which is also a sign of fewer and fewer people working the land.

To conclude, Harley has a very rare history bearing in mind, according to Hoskins, that the English landscape is almost entirely the product of only the last 1500 years beginning with Anglo Saxon villages in the 5^th C. The prehistoric contribution is very small he says, but Harley extraordinarily seems to have its share even of this distant time.

The above map shows the Norman Church – the black building in the centre of the map – which preceded the Victorian Church of 1845. It also shows what is probably the Manor House ruin north of and alongside the church fronting the village road and standing in the Pound field. The map date is 386 years after the death of the last resident Lord of the Manor in 1349. After this date the Manor House lay unoccupied, the building materials being salvaged. The plan shape or footprint is still visible today as a low platform.