It says in Source B that a lady was standing next to a house with a thatched roof, this shows that even though slate was being transported in so that roofs can be repaired and made better, because of the railway a lot of goods weren’t coming in including slate.
John Hollingshead wrote in Source B how he was so hungry and that Stoke Breurne didn’t have any food. The wealth implied by Source A was contradicted in Source B, the butcher was smaller than the cabin of a narrow boat, and contained no meat, only a piece of suet "the size of a nut" whereas before in sources A there had been quality meat to spare. This shows us that Stoke Breurne is very poor now with very few goods coming in.
All this evidence is backed up by the other sources. The source written by Philip Sauvain proves the fact that even though the canal was the only means of transporting goods cheaply, the railway was a better form of transport because it was much faster.
In source B it says that Stoke Breurne is a ‘small cottage street’ this point is backed up by the Ordinance Survey Map where it shows the new railway is built near a village called Roade, therefore everyone moved to Roade because of the railway leaving Stoke Breurne a small village before everyone had moved in.
It also says in Source B that a lady was standing outside a house with a thatched roof, so even though slate was coming in so new roofs could be made, because of the new railway not that many goods were being brought into Stoke Breurne. This can be proved in the minutes of 7th August 1851, in this minute it says they closed one of the locks because not many boats were coming in. this can also be seen on the site evidence that one lock is not being used.
Last of all John Hollingshead wrote in source B how there wasn’t any food anywhere. This can be proven in the table of dividends where it shows there was not that much business and not that much profit being made, this was because not that many products and food were coming in.
All of the points made in Source B have been backed up by a source, showing that John Hollingshead is not making anything up and that the source is quite useful. However in source B John gave us the impression that no profit was being made at all and that there was no business coming into Stoke Breurne. However it shows in the Table of Dividends that there was always some profit being made weather it was only 2% or 4%. This shows that John Hollingshead was exaggerating, and if he exaggerated about the profit coming in he could have exaggerated on other points.
In conclusion Source B mainly does agree with the other sources, however, the only bit that doesn’t is where he is exaggerating the fact that no business was coming in what so ever, like I said before if he exaggerated on that point there could be loads of other points where John has either exaggerated the point or lied about something to either cover up the truth so it doesn’t look bad but in this case, so that no one visits Stoke Breurne. Therefore I wouldn’t consider Source B that reliable. We do not know why the source was written and the links that Hollingshead had with the village. In addition, the source displays a very one-sided answer, like source A, which would mean again that it is not a valuable source on its own. He could have visited Stoke Breurne the day before all the new stock was to come in for the week that’s why there wasn’t any food left. I conclude that this source is useful because even though John Hollingshead exaggerated that fact that no profit was coming in, every other point he has made has been backed up by the other sources proving it to be reliable.
In general, source B gives an image of the village at the time of the railway. Any information given about the villages other than the atmosphere are simple implications. There are no definite statements, such as the village was wealthy, which is from Source A, I was simply able to deduce facts from the sources which I could then further back up with other sources. Without other sources, source B would be fairly useless. However with other information the sources are quite useful and appear to be reliable.
