Introduction
This book has been produced in response to local interest in Rufford in times past and in the hope of raising funds for our Village School.

The photographs mirror life in Rufford in days gone by and should provide many interesting points for debate and discussion. Older families of the community will be reminded of pleasurable times in their youth, while the younger generation and newcomers to Rufford will enjoy brief glimpses and reflections of the past.
Have things changed for the better? Is life richer for progress and new inventions? Have long-standing traditions been forgotten and ignored? Perhaps buildings have vanished that should never have been demolished? Is Rufford all the better for an `improved' main road? Whatever happened to . . . . . . . . . . . ? We could ask a hundred and one such questions as we browse through the photographs of Rufford in times past.

The village of Rufford, like many of its counterparts in Britain, is an ever changing scene and the aerial photograph taken in 1971 shows how much the area is changing in present times. The telephone exchange has since been built, together with development in Holmeswood Road, The Flash, Church Road and in the paddock adjacent to the school.

The stables and outbuildings of the Hesketh Arms have long since gone and, more recently, the interior reflects the life and times of the present moment. The school grounds and boundaries have changed and once majestic elms have been cut down to ground level as a result of disease.

Rufford Park, however, remains essentially the same, although the now famous Mediaeval Fair has superseded the Rufford Agricultural Show, whose Committee of 1920 can be seen at the end of this book.

No doubt by the year 2000, more changes will have taken place in the village, and it is left to the imagination and the individual as to what they might be and how well they might benefit the local community.

G. Tittershill

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