Buckminster and Sewstern, in north-east Leicestershire, are two small villages within a single parish, and although both were established before 1086, they have developed different characters. Buckminster was purely an agricultural village until the 1790s, whereas Sewstern played host to a wide variety of trades between the 14th and 19th centuries, until the age of the railways changed things forever. This book explores the similarities and differences between the two villages over more than a thousand years of recorded history.