The 1881 census is available via the above link - a search facility will be added soon. Although most dwellings are not separately identified, the Census appears to have been conducted from Harpley Dams in the east, along Abbey Road and Church Lane, to Appleton House in the far west.

The oldest resident was Lydia Bridges - apparently aged 105 years!

Martin Rippegill (69 yrs) and wife Mary kept the New Inn while widow Frances Bridges (53 yrs) was landlady at the Bell, where she lived with her brother John, a "brazier and tinman". The Patrick family were the village butchers (they slaughtered animals on their Church Lane premises)

Farmers directly employed a total of 114 hands:

Dam Farm: Elizabeth Betts (27 yrs) is shown as Head person of an all female household with her sister Caroline (17 yrs) of 1100 acres employing 20 men and 6 boys - though father may simply have been absent on census night.

Abbey Farm: Frederick Cooke (38 yrs) farmed 1300 acres employing 29 men and 4 boys.

Hall Farm: George Brereton (52 yrs) had 873 acres employing 21 men and 6 boys

Appleton Hall: Charles Blyth (40 yrs) managed 870 acres with 21 men and 7 boys.

There also appears to have been a resident police officer (Walter Seeley); postmaster (Henry Creamer) and a master wheelwright (Flitcham born Henry Billing) employing 10 men while John Layland (29 yrs) and his wife Emma (27 yrs) were school master and mistress.