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:
“Let us have a good many maples and hickories and scarlet oaks, then, I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of bunting in the gun-house be all the colors a village can display? A village is not complete, unless it have these trees to mark the season in it. They are important, like the town clock. A village that has them not will not be found to work well. It has a screw loose, an essential part is wanting.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Her green mind made the world around her green.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)