A village green is a common open area within a village or other settlement. Historically, a village green was common grassland with a pond for watering cattle and other stock, often at the edge of a rural settlement, used for gathering cattle to bring them later on to a common land for grazing. Later, planned greens were built into the centres of villages.
Chipperfield, Hertfordshire village green and war memorial
New Haven Green, c. 1919
Finchingfield village green
A village green in Zuidlaren, Netherlands
Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel.
Poohsticks Bridge in Ashdown Forest, an area of common land.
Modern-day pannage, or common of mast, in the New Forest
Snake's head fritillary, North Meadow, Cricklade. This is grazed as Lammas common land.
View of the Scafell massif from Yewbarrow, Wasdale, Cumbria. In the valley bottom are older enclosures and higher up on the fell-side are later enclosures on poorer land with substantial walls following boundary lines regardless of terrain. Above those is the unenclosed common land
