Still a draft.


So we have some 'facts' about Knapton, drawn largely from Shepherd's study of that village in the 20th century. It was not cut off in Pardon's youth, as has falsely been asserted within the Pardon industry.

It had local gentry and skilled craftsmen as well as a range of more and less specialised agricultural labourers and gardeners.

It had a railway station in the 19th century. It had both church and chapel, and one of the chapel luminaries, Amis, was also a figure in the history of the Labour movement. Pardon is known to have attended youth groups run by the chapel. It had a range of music, barn dances to fiddlers.

There was a school in Knapton in the first half of the 18th century, not a church school. Not certain but must have been endowed/paid for by somebody, presumably some of the local gentry? It was not a church school, that is clear.

It had the beginnings of a tourist industry as early as before WW II.
Social events ranged from Sunday School outings to presentations of the plays of Shakespeare. There were some council houses in Knapton pre WW II. They got electricity in the 1940s (47 I think)