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For generations the villagers of Newdigate had lived an ordered, class-structured life. The wealthy, along with their servants, lived in big houses. The poor lived in small, cramped cottages.

The Great War affected families in the poorest and richest homes throughout the village; the lads working in the fields, the professional soldiers and the officer class who left their comfortable homes to ‘do their bit’.

Today, one hundred years later, the echoes of those times still resonate throughout the church of St. Peter in Newdigate.

Author and Historian John Callcut welcomes us to his village in the heart of the Weald on the Sussex and Surrey borders.

Location: St Peter Church, Church Road, Newdigate RH5 5DL
Image: Newdigate then and now, courtesy of John Callcut