A History of Wing Village and its Setting 1066-2018
By David Seviour. Published by the author. 2019.
Price £15. Available from Walker's Bookshop, Oakham,
or from the author davidseviour33@gmail.com
This publication is the end-product of the work which went into the production of Wing's
Neighbourhood Plan. The associated recording of the built environment of Wing on the Wing
village website, including both listed and unlisted buildings, is to be commended as an example
for every Rutland village.
The published book is part of a wider process in which the author and the Neighbourhood Plan
Group sought to engage with the heritage of the village in order to protect the past and
enhance the future of where they live.
The first part of the book relates the early history of the village derived from published sources
as well as other material open to public scrutiny, and the author makes some interesting
observations on the nature of the maze, long distance routes and the windmill. Although much
of the commentary is general in nature, he does intercede with connections to Wing people and
buildings. It would have been better to have more self-contained elements concerning Wing
property-owning families in discreet sections, rather than scattered through the text which
unfortunately lacks an index. The section on the seventeenth century includes occasional
mentions of ‘newcomers’ and notable families across the centuries.
The latter part of the book continues its chronological progression through the ages. But again,
the information is muddled. For example, the section on World War Two appears before that of
the twentieth century. The book concludes with interesting analysis on housing, planning and
Wing’s ‘special environment’.
Some of the illustrations are a little too small, some are mis-captioned and some, which appear
to be straight off the camera, would have benefited from enhancement in Photoshop.
In conclusion, there is much useful and interesting information here, but it should have been
organised into more coherent sections and indexed.
RT