young family on a wage of twelve shillings a week. With meat costing eight pence per lb. and wheat seven shillings a bushel, that at best would be a hand to mouth existence.
   In 1861, the population was one hundred and fifteen fewer than ten years before.⁷  The number of children had fallen by between sixty and seventy, which in itself suggests that quite a few people of marriageable age had left the parish. A natural consequence was that the average age of the inhabitants had risen; so in fact, also, had the number of people gainfully employed. The decrease in population was accompanied by a decrease in the already small number of elderly persons, but there were still six octogenarians.
   Changes in the farming pattern of the parish are reflected in the fact that whereas, twenty years previously, there had been twenty-one farmers, there were now only thirteen, while the number of agricultural labourers had slightly increased. 

Seven of the farmers were in fact only smallholders and mostly modest ones at that. The more substantial farms with. resident farmers were South Ash, Ash Place, Terry’s Lodge, West Yoke, Upper Pettings and Maple Down.⁸ Idleigh, North Ash and Turner’s Farm were evidently worked by bailiffs.
   The number of ‘foreignèrs’was increasing, but not very fast. There were a few more english, but not Kentish born, the lady from Guernsey was still around and a Scotsman and an Irishman were temporarily lodged at the Swan while working on the Ordnance Survey map. The most remarkable of the birthplaces recorded was that of a forty-nine year old agricultural labourer, who had been born ‘Near Itley on the Sea’.
    Ash, it seems, was no longer troubled by vagrants; on the night of the census, only one person was sleeping rough. The parish had now acquired a resident police constable.