A village green is a common open area within a settlement. Traditionally, a village green was often common grassland at the centre of an agricultural or other rural settlement, and was used for grazing. Some also have a pond, often originally for watering stock such as cattle.
The village green also provided, and may still provide, an open air meeting place for the local people, which may be used for public celebrations such as May Day festivities.
The term village green evokes a grassy rural environment. However the term is used more broadly to encompass woodland, moorland, sports grounds, and even—in part—buildings and roads. The green may also be positioned away from the centre of the village, especially if the village has moved, or been absorbed into a larger settlement.
Read more about Village Green: Distribution, Town and Village Greens, Examples
Famous quotes containing the words village and/or green:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“You know, if this is Venus, or some other strange planet, we’re liable to run into some high-domed characters with green blood in their veins who’ll blast at us with their atomic death rayguns, and there we’ll be with these—these poor old-fashioned shootin’ irons.”
—Edward L. Bernds (b. 1911)