Botton: the strangest village in Britain
Botton, a Yorkshire village, is a place where eccentric behaviour is celebrated and people who might have difficulty being accepted by the outside world are welcomed.
One hundred and thirty five people with special needs live and work with 100 ‘co-workers’ (and their children) in a remote and self-contained collection of farmhouses set in a rugged valley on the North Yorkshire Moors.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Botton, and some of its residents have been there since the beginning. Co-workers, too, opt into a long-term commitment to share their homes and their lives with up to eight adults with special needs; it’s certainly not a lifestyle for the intolerant or impatient. While the community appears to have been a success, it has also been controversial among some social work professionals who believe that people with learning difficulties do better when integrated into the wider community.
If not for blogs and blog-surfing, how would I have EVER heard of this place? If the pictures aren’t working on my post, so be sure to click on the word Botton at the top of the page for some lovely photos.
Fascinating! Thanks for this - I come from Yorkshire, so it was of particular interest to me. (And ironic that I should find out about something in my home county via a blogger in Minnesota!)
I was a special education teacher for ten years, so this subject is of special interest to me. I don’t know that there is anywhere in the US like this. I’ll have to do some research. The photographs of the villagers speak volumes.
I only came accross your blog by chance. i have had quite alot of experience of Botton Village and i can tell you it isn’t all it sems, or what the people at the top would lie you to think. It is a camphill community, which follows Rudolf Steiner’s religion/philosophy/spiritualscience called anthrposophy. Many people would callit a cult( me included). They believe that people’s learning difficulties are cause by an incarnation problem and that they are demons in hum an from. There is belief in reincarnation, spiritual worlds, clairvoyance cosmic forces and racial hierarchy. Not all the peole there are fully aware of all the connotations of anthroposophy; they are only invited into the esoteric”knowledge2 wjhen they are deemed “ready”
And there are plenty of Camphill communities in the US and all obver the world. It is a cult, and groing , as people grow diillusioned with the modern world, the Steiner movement sells them a way of life which is natiral and other worldly; few peoiple realise the full extent of the anthroposohy which lies at the heart of all stteiner organisations, Steiner Waldorf schools, bio dynamic agriculture, Weleda cosmetics, Demeter food, Dr Hauschka cosmetics Tridios bank and Camphill among a few.