Why do the English love the countryside so much?

The countryside holds a special place in the hearts of millions of English men and women.

In the midst of the 21st century, this idyllic place made of rolling green hills, breathtaking landscapes, fairy-tale cottages and picture-perfect villages still has the power to inspire the collective imagination and move deep chords in a country firmly projected into the future, but also full of contradictions. A nation in which the largest and most technologically advanced metropolitan area in Europe coexists with thousands of villages, medieval towns and feudal traditions that elsewhere would sound totally anachronistic and out of place.

Mind the Gap - A very British phenomenon

The British love for the countryside is a phenomenon that intrigues precisely because of its obvious anomaly compared to the social dynamics prevailing in other countries. This deep, almost ancestral connection, still strongly rooted in large parts of the population regardless of economic, geographical and social factors, is in fact a uniquely British (and primarily English) trait that has few parallels in the rest of the world, not only in the West.

In a way, you cannot truly say to know England if you don't understanding the bond that still exists between large segments of the English population and the rural world.

An anecdote mentioned in an article with the emblematic title "Why do we (the English) all want to live in the country?" written by Mark Edges, editor of Country Life, the prestigious magazine that has been the most influential voice of the English countryside for more than 120 years, perfectly exemplifies this obvious cultural gap. Edges explains that, during a lunch at the Japanese embassy, one of his guests explained him how difficult it was for the Japanese government to convince its fellow citizens to leave the increasingly overcrowded metropolises and move to rural areas: "Everyone wants to live in Tokyo or Osaka," the diplomat said, adding, "What does your government do to convince citizens to leave the cities?" Edges' reply was enlightening: "I explained to him that in the UK the opposite happens, because here

the aspiration of people is to live in the countryside. A move to a rural area is generally seen as a sign of success.

The desire for a life in the countryside is a constitutive component of our nation, but this is not the case in other countries such as, for example, France and Italy. Paradoxically, the only people who seem to really aspire to live in the French or Italian countryside are the British."

As a native of a region often referred to as 'Chiantishire' (i.e. Tuscany, in Italy) precisely because of the high number of British people who have bought homes and often live most of the year in the most beautiful areas of the Tuscan and Umbrian countryside (including singers Sting and Ed Sheeran and the famous actor Colin Forth to name just a famous few), I cannot really argue against these claim.

What do stats say?

Stats also support Edges's words.

In a survey conducted a few years ago for Country Life magazine, 80% of those questioned indicated the countryside as the ideal setting to live, compared to a meagre 10% who said they preferred suburban areas, a paltry 6% the cities, and 4% who could not express a preference. When asked directly 'If you could, would you move to live in the country?', 60% said yes.

The poll dates back several years before COVID, so it was not influenced by the traumatic experience of the lockdowns, which in many countries led to a renewed popularity of smaller residential centres at the expense of big cities, and is supported by dozens of studies, research and sociological analyses that, over the years, have unequivocally confirmed how

the idyllic ideal of rural life still continues to represent the dream of the average Englishman (and woman).

This, despite 'escaping to the country' is not exactly a dream within everyone's reach due to the premium you have to pay on average in the UK for the 'privilege' of living in a village, in a cottage or in a predominantly rural setting.

Again, this situation, certified by all reports on property values in the UK over the last few decades, is a confirmation of what Mark Edges said in his article, i.e., that living in the countryside is now seen in the UK as a sign of social advancement and an achievement to aspire to, partly also because of the 'status' it brings.

The results of the Country Life survey, absolutely unthinkable in Italy, France or Germany, do not, however, mean that 80% of British people live in the countryside - if anything, the opposite is true, even if the ongoing trend is towards a slow but steady rebalancing in favour of rural areas.

According to an interesting paper on Rural England published in March 2023 by the UK Department for the Environment, Food Resources and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), out of a total of 56.6 million residents in England in 2020, 9.7 million lived in areas classified as rural (17.1%), and, of these, 4.7 million lived in country villages or 'hamlets', i.e. smaller or scattered hamlets that cannot be classified as villages.

To understand how these numbers square with the findings of Country Life's survey, it is necessary to look more closely at the internal migration flows from cities to country areas that have occurred in England in recent decades.

According to the DEFRA paper, the population of rural England increased by 600,000 between 2011 and 2020, from 9.1 million to 9.7 million, and the long-term trend is clearly towards a shift from urban to predominantly rural areas.

A phenomenon that, even more surprisingly, seems to affect all age groups, with the sole exclusion of the 17-20 age group, i.e. those who move to live in the city to study at universities or start their working careers.

Where does the love for the Great Outdoor come from?

If stats and researches speak clearly, a question arises: where does this continuing love affair between the British and the countryside come from? What are the reasons that explain this phenomenon, so unique in the West, and why does it continue to be so strong in the 2020s?

The answer to these questions is obviously complex, and involve a number of historical, cultural and sociological factors.

What follows is a reflection based on my own research, much reading and first-hand experience of living in the English countryside, and obviously does not pretend to represent a complete and accurate analysis of such a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. If you have any different information, facts or opinions that could help understand the root causes of this interesting social phenomenon, please share them in the comments.

One certain fact is that, for many people in the UK, the countryside is Britain as it should be:

an area full of flowers and gardens, protected areas of outstanding beauty, traditional pubs with oak tables, leather armchairs and roaring fireplaces, dogs, horses and wild animals, waxed jackets, rubber boots (the ubiquitous wellies), pretty medieval towns and picturesque villages, a place where it is possible to live a peaceful existence close to nature and to relax.

The most interesting fact is that this somewhat idealised vision of the countryside has surprisingly recent origins.

A bit of history...

Rather than the medieval period and the feudal world, which left important traces in English society and legislation starting with the very concept of property still used today in England,

the idyllic image we all have in our minds of the English countryside owes its popularity to the Romantic movement that emerged in England at the end of the 18th century as a reaction to the most devastating effects on people and society of the Industrial Revolution.

This process of tumultuous socio-economic transformation that began in the late 17th century and exploded in the 18th and 19th centuries, on the one hand laid the foundations for the birth and expansion of the British Empire, but on the other produced a dramatic depopulation and disruption of the countryside, the rise of the urban proletariat and the emergence of widespread inhuman living and working conditions, often worse than the harsh life in the fields.

The cultural and literary movement that arose to challenge the distortions of Victorian society and the destruction of the traditional English rural culture identified a return to the simple values of the countryside as the best antidote against the misery and degradation of city slums and the horrors of life in the mines.

Famous novelists like Charles Dickens, who focused his work on denouncing the widespread poverty and rigid stratification of Victorian society, Thomas Hardy, author of the celebrated 'Far From the Madding Crowd', George Eliot, literary pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, and the Brontë sisters, successful designers like William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, landscape painters like John Constable and J.M.W. Turner, poets like William Wardsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Blake became the champions of this powerful cry of rebellion against the degradation of mass industrialisation, and with their works laid the foundations for a renewed popularity of rural life, whose effects can still be felt today in English collective imagination.

A an example, William Blake's beautiful poem 'Jerusalem' is still considered by many across England nowadays the unofficial anthem of the English countryside.

The idealisation of the countryside as the essence of the true English identity that started in Victorian times continued unabated into the 20th century. It is impossible to list here all the authors, filmmakers, poets and painters who, over the last 120 years, have celebrated the spirit of the English countryside or set their works in villages or farming societies - from Tolkien to Roald Dahl, from Beatrix Potter to Agatha Christie and, more recently, Ronald Blythe, all were inspired by the ideals of rural and country life.

These literary and artistic contributions were then joined by the new strand of preservation of the natural and cultural heritage, which experienced a key moment with the birth of the National Trust in 1895, whose mission is, even today, to preserve and enhance historic residences, parks, gardens, monuments and places of outstanding natural beauty and significance, most of which are located in the countryside.

The fact that, with 5.7 million members, the National Trust is now the second largest membership organisation in the UK after the Students' Union and the largest voluntary heritage association in Europe, is further proof of how deeply the love of nature and the countryside is rooted in the hearts and psyche of the British people.

A connection that cuts across society

This enduring link with rural life is also not limited to a particular segment of English society but extends to all social classes, including the upper class, the aristocracy and the Royal Family itself.

More than elsewhere in Europe and the western world, the British upper class is inextricably linked to the countryside.

Dukes, earls and marquesses, whose titles still have legal value in the English society and legal system, and members of the landed gentry all have their family seat in a country residence - in some cases in a real castle, such as the Duke of Norfolk in Arundel, West Sussex, a magnificent landmark which is really worth a visit.

Highclere Castle, location of the famous TV series Downtown Abbey, is still the family seat of the Earl and Countess of Caernarvon who, like the Duke of Norfolk and hundreds of other aristocrats, members of government, actors, successful footballers, singers and entrepreneurs, prefer to spend long periods in their country residences rather than in luxurious penthouses in central London.

One only has to wander around the small graveyards of country parish churches to discover dozens of graves of members of the English aristocracy, middle class, politics and culture, who have preferred these picturesque burial places in the middle of nowhere to large city cemeteries.

One example speaks for all - Winston Churchill, one of, if not THE world's greatest statesmen of the 20th century, rests in a simple grave in the ground in the rural cemetery of Bladon, a tiny hamlet in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds near Blenheim Palace, the majestic palace of his paternal family (the Dukes of Marlborough), and turned down the Queen's and Government's offer to be buried in Westminster Abbey alongside the Great and Good of the English nation.

When I visited Churchill's grave a few years ago, as well as, more recently, the unassuming grave of the famous Marshal Bernard Montgomery (the hero of El Alamein and D-Day) in the small cemetery of Binsted, a village a few miles from where I live in Hampshire, what struck me the most in both cases was their simple and utterly anonymous, if very atmospheric and rural, setting. And, like these two heroes of the Second World War, hundreds of prominent figures in British history, even in recent times, have decided to make a similar choice.

This doesn't happen elsewhere: in France, in Germany, but also in Italy, the countryside has always been associated with the peasantry rather than with aristocracy or statesmen; the latter usually live in exclusive neighbourhoods of large cities and are buried in monumental cemeteries or luxurious family tombs, not in modest graveyards in obscure rural villages.

The role of the Royal Family

The British Royal Household has also played a key role in the renaissance of the English countryside that began in the mid-19th century.

Queen Victoria and her husband Albert were the first royals to start the fashion of country holidays with the purchase of Balmoral Castle in Scotland and the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, still two of the most popular royal residences today.

The almost symbiotic relationship between British Royalty and the countryside continued unabated even after the death of Victoria and her German consort, and found its climax in the never-hidden love for rural life, horses and country estates of the late Queen Elizabeth II, her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, and her son, the current King Charles III. The latter has for years considered the residence of Highgrove, located outside the pretty town of Tetbury in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds, his real home and has transformed the Duchy of Cornwall, one of the titles of the heir to the British throne that encompasses vast estates throughout the UK designed to provide a steady source of income to the future monarch, into a model of organic and sustainable farming.

King Charles III is known for his passion for simple country life, his respectful attention to rural traditions and his extensive expertise in farming, food and zoology.

The organic honey and jam I bought a few months ago in the farm shop at his Highgrove estate during my last visit to the Cotswolds were definitely excellent...

What drives the English to the countryside?

Having explained when today's British love of the countryside began to develop and what its historical and cultural reasons are, a question remains to answer - which aspects of rural life are most loved by His Majesty's subjects today?

Here, too, we can rely on a survey. According to the country clothing company A Hume, out of the 10,000 citizens questioned on this very subject,

52% ranked the peace and tranquillity that only rural life can offer as the number one reason for their love of the countryside.

Not far behind are the beauty of the landscape (45% of the sample) and the opportunity to live in contact with nature and wildlife (33.8%). The presence of traditional country pubs appeals to 25.1%, the lack of traffic to 17.1% and the quality of local food to 16.9%.

Having lived for several years in an English countryside village in the heart of one of the UK's most scenic national parks, where traffic is limited, there is an abundance of traditional pubs serving excellent food produced with fresh local produce, and tranquillity is the rule of daily life, I can only agree with the results of this survey.

Why do I love the English countryside?

To explain my love for the English countryside, I would therefore add just a couple of reasons to this list: the opportunity to walk along the endless network of paths, bridleways and public rights of way (another English feature whose historical origins I will explore in more details on in another blog) that cross England north to south and make it a true paradise for walkers, and the peculiar lifestyle that characterises this fascinating world. The latter is a very broad topic that will certainly be the focus of much of my future content on this blog.

Considering all this, it is perhaps not so strange that the British continue to love their beautiful countryside so much.

As an Italian by origin and English citizen by adoption, I cannot but share this passion, which is also the inspiration behind Passione Campagna Inglese.