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Eras of change

Many ancient sites such as these have been affected by radical changes imposed upon large areas of the countryside between 1350 and 1600. The Black Death (bubonic plague) from 1348 onwards wiped out more than one-third of the population within a short space of time. Then landlords began to enclose the land and evict villagers to make way for a huge expansion of sheep farming to satisfy a soaring demand for wool from British and continental cloth manufacturers, and to benefit from rising meat prices. Over little more than 100 years, at least 3000 villages and hamlets were deserted, as countless strips of medieval open-field cultivation were turned over to pasturage for sheep. Some never knew a plough again, and so retain the grassed-over marks of their former use.

A legacy of the great wealth created can be seen in the magnificent 'wool' churches built in towns and villages by pious merchants, manufacturers and farmers - particularly in the COTSWOLDS, where the warm tones of the mellowed local stone suffuse towns such as Chipping Campden and villages like Bibury.

Later, in the 18th and 19th centuries, landlords and clan chieftains swept tenant farmers and crofters from large areas of the Scottish HIGHLANDS, again to make way for sheep and deer. These wholesale evictions, often enforced by destroying crofts and cottages, became infamous as the 'Clearances', and led to large-scale emigration to North America, especially Canada. Much of the Scottish Highlands remains virtually empty to this day.

A landslide victory by the Labour Party over the Conservatives in the post-Second World War election of 1945 heralded another upsurge of social change in Britain: the establishment of the Welfare State and the nationalization of the Bank of England and basic industries - coal, gas and electricity, road, rail and air transport, and finally steel production. Between 1942 and 1945, as final victory in the war approached, a series of planning commissions had been set up to formulate domestic policies and plans for reconstruction after the war. The most far-reaching report was that prepared by Sir William Beveridge, which proposed the unification of social benefits to cover the whole population, from cradle to grave. From it sprang the National Health Service, providing free medical care for all, National Insurance, financed by employers, workers and the state; and National Assistance, which provided care for those not qualifying for insurance benefits, or in danger of becoming de stitute. Family Allowances - cash allowances for children - had already been introduced before Labour gained power.

This revolutionary legislation was pushed through at a time when Britain's overseas debts were high. Factories, homes and other buildings worth US$6800 million had been destroyed, one-third of the merchant fleet sunk and 60 per cent of export trade lost. A period of austerity and hardship followed: wartime food rationing continued until 1954; clothes were rationed until 1949. Problems were exacerbated by bleak events abroad -the 'Cold War' between Russia, her East European satellite countries and the Western powers; and the Korean War, in which British troops fought in the United Nations forces.

Labour barely scraped in with a majority of 6 in the 1950 General Election. In October 1951, the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, called another General Election and Labour was defeated by the Conservatives. Labour did not regain power for 13 years.

But despite continuing difficulties, Britain began to prosper. In 1957, an ebullient Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan (later Lord Stockton), was moved to remark that 'most of our people have never had it so good' - a phrase that returned to haunt him in less-prosperous times soon to come. But in the 1 960s 'Swinging Britain' became a world trendsetter in design and the expanding pop music and entertainment industries. A growing laissez-faire attitude to social behavior heralded the so-called Permissive Society.

But the textile industries of LANCASHIRE and YORKSHIRE were in massive decline, as was shipbuilding on the Tyne, CLYDE and MERSEYSIDE, and footwear manufacture in Northamptonshire and Leicestershire. The energy crisis of the early 1970s and continuing recession in the 1980s merely accelerated the trend. Steel mills closed and even the car industry - centered on the WEST MIDLANDS, ESSEX, the Clyde Valley and Merseyside, and highly successful in the 1950s and 1960s - ran into serious trouble.

By 1973 the Welfare State had an already unacceptable half million unemployed; within a decade the total had exceeded 3 million.

However, responsibility lay not only with the recession and competition from younger and more efficient industries abroad: the very structure of British industry had been undergoing profound change. In 1909 half the country's manufactures were produced by 2000 or more firms; by 1970 only 140 firms were turning out the same proportion of a much larger quantity of goods.

The demise of the small firm and the rise of the large corporation - or the multinational, with its roots outside the country was all but complete.

Moreover, the decline in manufacturing brought a shift in emphasis to service Industries, and by 1983 13.2 million of the 20.8 million Britons in full employment were in these industries. They included a massive 4.6 million in public administration, health and education. The National Health Service alone employed nearly 1.3 million people - the biggest single employer in Europe and among the world's top ten. Only 5.5 million people were employed in manufacturing - a drop of 2.2 million in ten years.

On top of this industrial imbalance, the population is virtually static and ageing. The average family has barely the theoretical 2.1 children needed to replenish a population of 56 million. The population actually fell between 1974 and 1982, and despite calculations that it should reach 58 million by the year 2001, the real prospect is of zero growth'. A tradition of immigrants being outnumbered by emigrants also continues - 2.27 million left in 1973-82, while 1.8 million arrived. But improving health standards and medical advances are allowing more Britons to live longer - to pose further long-term problems of providing for more state pensions.

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