Thankful Villages (also known as Blessed Villages; ) are settlements in England and Wales from which all their members of the armed forces survived

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. The term Thankful Village was popularised by the writer

Arthur Mee Arthur Henry Mee (21 July 187527 May 1943) was an English writer, journalist and educator. He is best known for ''The Harmsworth Self-Educator'', ''The Children's Encyclopædia'', ''The Children's Newspaper'', and ''The King's England''. Ea ...

in the 1930s; in ''Enchanted Land'' (1936), the introductory volume to '' The King's England'' series of guides, he wrote that a Thankful Village was one which had lost no men in the war because all those who left to serve came home again. His initial list identified 32 villages. There are tens of thousands of villages and towns in the United Kingdom. In an October 2013 update, researchers identified 53

civil parishes in England In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

and Wales from which all serving personnel returned. There are no Thankful Villages identified in Scotland or Ireland yet (all of Ireland was then part of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

). Fourteen of the English and Welsh villages are considered "doubly thankful", in that they also lost no service personnel during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. These are marked in italics in the list below (note: while the list includes 17 of these, not all have been verified).

List of Thankful Villages

The researchers acknowledged a number of other villages which have been put forward as Thankful Villages but where they found there to be some uncertainty, generally over the place of residence of a serviceman.

England

;Buckinghamshire * Stoke Hammond ;Cambridgeshire * Toft ;Cornwall *'' Herodsfoot'' ;Cumberland * Ousby ;Derbyshire *'' Bradbourne'' ;Dorset *'' Langton Herring'' ;Durham * Hunstanworth ;Essex * Strethall ;Gloucestershire * Coln Rogers * Little Sodbury *'' Upper Slaughter'' ;Herefordshire * Knill *'' Middleton-on-the-Hill'' ;Hertfordshire * Puttenham ;Kent * Knowlton ;Lancashire *'' Arkholme'' *''

Nether Kellet Nether Kellet is a village and civil parish in the City of Lancaster in Lancashire, England, a few miles south of Carnforth. It had a population of 646 recorded in the 2001 census, increasing to 663 at the 2011 Census, and again to 738 at the 2 ...

'' ;Leicestershire * Saxby * East Norton * Stretton en le Field ;Lincolnshire * Bigby *'' Flixborough'' *'' High Toynton'' * Minting *'' Allington'' ;Northamptonshire * East Carlton * Woodend ;Northumberland * Meldon ;Nottinghamshire * Cromwell * Maplebeck * Wigsley * Wysall ;Rutland * Teigh ;Shropshire * Harley ;Somerset * Aisholt *

Chantry A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a set of Christian liturgical celebrations for the dead (made up of the Requiem Mass and the Office of the Dead), or # a chantry chapel, a b ...

Chelwood Chelwood is a small village and civil parish in Somerset, England, and is in the Chew Valley in the Bath and North East Somerset council area, about from Bristol and Bath. The parish, which includes the hamlets of West Chelwood and Breach, h ...

* Holywell Lake * Rodney Stoke * Shapwick *'' Stocklinch'' * Tellisford *'' Woolley'' ;Staffordshire *'' Butterton'' ;Suffolk * Culpho * Wordwell *'' South Elmham St Michael'' ;Sussex * East Wittering ;Yorkshire *'' Catwick'' * Cundall * Helperthorpe * Norton-le-Clay * Scruton

Wales

;Ceredigion *'' Llanfihangel y Creuddyn'' ;Glamorgan * Colwinston/''Tregolwyn'' ;Pembrokeshire *'' Herbrandston'' Tavernspite, in Pembrokeshire, has been mooted as a fourth doubly thankful village in Wales.

France

In France, where the human cost of war was higher than in Britain, there were only twelve villages in all of France with no men lost from World War I. One of these, Thierville, also suffered no losses in the

Franco-Prussian War The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...

and World War II, France's other bloody wars of the modern era.

In popular culture

Between 2016 and 2018, singer-songwriter Darren Hayman released a trilogy of albums inspired by and written in-situ at the Thankful Villages. 54 villages were covered, including Welbury, North Yorkshire, not in the 53 listed above.

References

{{reflist United Kingdom in World War I Villages in the United Kingdom