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At the end of November, I went to a protest in the back garden of a small estate cottage, where, after music, cake and readings, a 10-metre \u2018witch\u2019 was set alight in front of 200 emotional people. A family of seven had been given notice to move after 26 years in their home. They had never missed the rent and had no chance of affording anywhere else for miles around. It was a powerful, evocative symbol. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n The cottage was in need of renovation, so the landlord of this large Berkshire estate had decided to pull it down, rebuild and let it to new tenants. <\/p>\n\n In response, an awarenessraising Eviction Fete was held for all those \u201cwho belong to their home, but don\u2019t own their house\u201d, preceded by a letter to the \u201cabsentee landlords\u201d of the estate in the local press. <\/p>\n\n This letter was signed \u201cEsme Boggart, silt witch of the Thames Valley\u201d. In a great tradition of rural protest, from Captain Swing of the 1830s agricultural riots, or the later \u2018Rebecca\u2019 riots, where farmers dressed in women\u2019s clothing destroyed toll gates, a pseudonymous character was invoked to protect those too vulnerable in their own homes to risk identification. <\/p>\n\n It struck a chord, deeply. We have raised a family in a similar rented estate cottage. When we first moved here 18 years ago, from tied accommodation (a cottage provided with a job on a stud farm), it was our only hope of finding somewhere to live. We didn\u2019t work full-time for the estate, but our neighbours \u2013 the farmer, shepherd, housekeeper, gardener, gamekeeper and estate manager \u2013 did. The remaining houses were let to retirees, families, individuals or couples as their only homes.<\/span><\/p>\n\n A familiar, benign neglect (other than essential repairs) often comes with these homes; a make-do-and-mend approach from both sides. At ours, there is always mud, and parking is a field corner 270 metres up an unlit lane. There are stars (and rats) on deep, dark nights. It\u2019s not for everyone. But we love it. <\/p>\n\n Estate cottages play a key role in village life, even as their original purpose declined, along with rural employment. As council houses were sold and no new small houses built (the last in our village in 1999), they provide rural community housing. <\/p>\n\n Most of us on this estate are \u2018rural\u2019 workers; two (my husband included) are paramedics on a rural patch and I work at the small secondary school where many of the children live in tied or rented accommodation, their parents farm workers, racing hands, gardeners, gamekeepers, as well as nurses, scientists and booksellers. We are also school governors, scout leaders and fete organisers. We are part of the fabric of a caring, proactive, healthy community.<\/span><\/p>\n\n But we are haunted by the precarity of our position. Of the possibility of the next generation having different plans for the estate, or the family wanting (or needing) to take advantage of rocketing rents. If the condition of the property tips over into serious repair, an eviction may be triggered. <\/p>\n\n Building new, affordable homes in villages doesn\u2019t seem to make planning sense, when there is so little work, a faltering bus service, no shops or services. Earmarking homes for local people is rare \u2013 and restricts the movement of those who like to live in the countryside. <\/p>\n\n So can estate cottages play a role in vibrant communities? And who gets to live there? <\/p>\n\n At our former tied cottage at Highclere, you could see the succession of each new Earl in the peeling estate-blue of the front door \u2013 anew shade for each generation, a new fear and uncertainty with each fresh brushstroke. <\/p>\n\n Nicola Chester is a countryside writer. <\/p>\n\n Her first book, On Gallows Down<\/em>, is shortlisted for the James Cropper Wainwright Prize for nature writing.<\/p>\n\nWELL-WORN HOUSING <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n
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