The coming of the railways seems to be the single major turning point in the history of English towns and villages, so I have divided a timeline of important events between the "Old World" and the "New World" based around the Early Victorian period. If you have any additions/corrections to this timeline then please feel free to contribute. To peel back the layers of what we take for granted today gives us a much more flesh-on-the-bones understanding of history IMO.
I find the Old World fascinating in trying to understand Daily Life, when life was simple, and history progressed at a much slower pace till the sudden transition into the New World--post-Industrial Revolution. Knowledge of politics, council origins and the laws of the late 18th century would no doubt shed much light on the end of Feudalism. If you were a peasant working a farm in the 14th century, what rights did you have compared to the 16th century? Were you even allowed to travel to the City of London and stay the night at an inn or would you be considered an outlaw?
Following the decline of Roman Britain it would take many more centuries for civilisation, together with the technologies and innovations--including Christianity--to be revived. After the Dark Age mist fades it becomes clear that missionaries sent by the Pope begin taking over the country--even convincing or putting peer pressure on Kings to join their cult of Christianity. The country is soon divided into minsters and parishes with magnificent churches based on the Roman Basilica and often constructed in stone. Depending on which parish you belonged to--the origins of which are lost to the ravages of time--determines which church you paid your tithes. Scores of parishes are territorially organised, exiting within a Diocesan structure represented by an even more spectacular structure/settlement than the village church: the Cathedral Town! If there was any doubt about being Christian then just take a look at something as imposing as Lincoln Cathedral! The original St Pauls in London, when it's tower/spire was still intact, was the tallest building in the world until 1311 when Lincoln Cathedral was built! And all roads (or muddy trackways?) led to the City of London.
The early Catholics seemingly controlled everything through Monastic foundations, which acted as an all-in-one place of worship, scriptorium, hospital, theatre, school. The first historian of England was obviously a Monastic man: a Monk named Bede!
Education was controlled (or suppressed?) by the Church and the growing independence of grammar schools no doubt posed a threat to the clergy, and it was the most educated man of his day--Henry VIII--who dissolved most of the monasteries and the traditions and orders of saint worship. For that reason, evidence of Monastic life seems very vague in the age of Facebook. Sydenham was a hamlet in the soon to be promoted village to Market town of Lewisham, where at that time contained a fairly unique religious institution in the form of an Alien Priory founded by the Abbots of Ghent (from Belgium). Not only would this have acted as a Manor House headed by a Lord of the Manor like those at the center of every other Kentish village, but it would have been more of a cult centre with a religious function. The nearest monastery to this was in Abbey Wood, but you would have to travel to east Kent to see another Alien Priory akin to Lewisham Priory. How about the church that disappeared in Brockley? What kind of foundation was that?
The Knights Templar left their mark in Dartford (there was also a Nunnery there) and Sutton-at-Hone, but the only other Monastic establishment nearby in Kent was a friary founded at Greenwich in 1482. Of course the City of London was always several steps ahead of the villages (and towns) with many more churches, religious houses and shops than anywhere else in the country. It's interesting to compare them. Certain events of daily life might only have been possible in Central London, such as attending a Jewish Synagogue in 1280, and the more richer you were the more of an extravagant life you could have led: it seems Richard I had most ingredients to cook a Thai Curry or Chairman Mao's Red Braised Pork barring Lemongrass and Soy Sauce (didn't reach St Katherine's Dock until 1696) and a gas oven. Who knows: he might have been one of the few people of his day to meet a person of Asian ethnicity?
I wonder how Lewisham's medieval market would have compared to today's markets in 3rd world countries? When William finally reached London, crossing the many rivers, bridges and watermills in his path, why did he build the Tower of London outside London?
Answer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
Plenty of Pubs, as well as Windmills, were known in and around the parish of Lewisham (but with suitable stabling?), though I thought shops outside of London were more of a late Victorian thing, though the 1830s/40s Tithe Maps indicates handfuls of shops existing in most parishes of west Kent at that time. Therefore, the village shop could go back much further in time. What were they selling? Certainly not the gold that was available from London's Cheapside--one of less than a handful of streets illustrated before the Great Fire of 1666 and rebuilding of the City.
Sydenham was a great place for Tourism as it attracted people to the wells discovered in Wells Park Road, in the 1640s. Did anyone from Sydenham or Lewisham bother to visit Beckett's tomb in Canterbury Cathedral though?
Perhaps a sydenhamite committing a serious crime would have by-passed the manorial and county courts--together with the Lewisham Cage--to be put inside a medieval jail? And let's hope such a crime was committed in the later centuries when being boiled alive, of the many torture methods, was decided too extreme!
Could you buy books in Old World Lewisham? Lewisham and Greenwich were already places of learning from 1652 and 1673 when Grammar Schools were founded there. Where would Sydenhamites have gone to bank or post letters? Besides pubs, were there coffee houses in any of the villages? How and when could they obtain newspapers? When did Lewisham first get street lighting?
Riding a barge on the Croydon Canal must have been very pleasant and enjoyable, but how would you find out about emigration to the United States by ship and which ports could you have boarded such a ship at? Which companies were offering such a service? Perhaps it was all tied in to the Royal Dockyards and Age of Discovery/Exploration.
Although the list of events leading up the Industrial Revolution and railways are minor compared to the explosion that was to follow, something invisible seemed to be happening in the world of Georgian architecture and waves of ordinary homes, based around the London Square and places like Dartmouth Row in Blackheath, so knowledge of evolving casement windows and mansard roofs would for sure benefit our understanding in this study--together with research into leisure, sports, industry and textiles--not to mention bins and waste management for which I'm struggling to find anything!
Finally, for every pig you successfully evicted from the City of London would, at one time, earn you a reward! Nevermind the rats and the plague... that's another story!
Post-Roman Town/Village Historical Timeline
Old World
597: Cathedrals, Diocese, Church, Minsters, Parish and Church Yard
598: Monasteries/Hospitals - Abbey, Priory, Alien Priory, Nunnery, Hermitage, of various orders
598: Schools - Grammar and Song
Late 6C: European coins used as money
620s: first sustained production of Saxon coins
650s: Mints
Saxon: Markets and Fairs
Saxon (restricted to 1 per town/village in 965): Pubs - Aleshouse, Inns + Stabling, Taverns
886: Royal Mint
1086: At least 6,000 Watermills across England, 2% of which have not been located by modern archeological surveys
Norman: Castles
Norman: Hospitals and Almshouses (relieved Monasteries?)
Norman: Universities and Colleges
Norman: Chantries
12C: Windmills
Medieval: Shops
Medieval: Monasteries - Knight Templar Estates/Hospitallers
Medieval: Pilgrimage (early tourism) - tombs, wells, shrines, cult centres
1166?: Prisons/Jails built by Henry II
1221: Monasteries - Friaries
1247: Great Conduit of London from Tyburn spring to Cheapside, replacing Thames tributory and spring sources, and later expanding)
1300: Watermills increased to between 10,000 and 15,000
1384: Chantry Schools
1400: Medieval/Religious Theatre
15C: Beer House and Breweries (after hops were added to ale)
1425: Libraries beginning with the Guildhall
1472: Printing/bookselling
Elizabethan: Renaissance theatre
1582: Pumped Water supply from London Bridge (largely destroyed in 1666 but replacements engineered lasting till 1830)
c1600: Black slaves, many from the Caribbean, began appearing in wealthy households in the UK as a result of the slave trade.
1606: Emigration to United States, India, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand, etc.
1613: New River artificial waterway to supply London with fresh drinking water
1620: Newspapers
1650: First bank opened in Nottingham
1652: Coffee houses
1660: Post Office
1660: The Grand (Tour of Europe; via Dover) for upper class tourists (until 1840s)
1669/late 18C: Public Transport - Horse and Cart/Coach (replaced pedestrian only travel)
1668: Gin brought to UK pubs
1683: Museums starting with the Ashmolean (1753: British Museum)
1693: Bank of England founded
1700s: Street Lighting (oil and later gas)
1706: Toll roads (Turnpikes) till 1870s/1895
1723: Workhouses built (replacing non-residential handouts in exchange for work)
1723: Waterworks companies starting with Chelsea (Deptford: 1809)
1741: Canals
18C: Spas - tourism for health
1760s-1820s?: Roads (replaced gravel trackways)
1773: First coffee house offering curry on their menu
1781: Only 2% of Londoners were Black or Asian
1784: Over 100 Banks existed by this date
1790s?: First restaurants in London
1792: Telegraph
c1800: Machinery and Industrial Revolution with increased population
1803: Horse drawn trams
1807: following the abolition of the African slave trade, some wealthy families brought Indian servants to Britain.
1812-20: British Gas and first gas lighting utilities
1816: Of 12,000 parishes, 3,500 had no school, 3,000 had endowed schools of varying quality and 5,500 had unendowed schools of even more varying quality
1816: New types of Schools - Sunday, Industry, Monitorial, Infant, Elementary and Technical
1820s?: Sweet Shop
1829: Police/station
1829: Horse drawn bus
1830s: Public Parks
1832: First Cemetery in London (replaced Church Yards)
1832: Reform act - right to vote
1834: Gas ovens
New World
1836: Trains
1837: By this date, six indoor pools with diving boards were built in London
1839: Electric telegraph
1850s: Photography
1851: Water Closet and public (flush) toilets
1855: Thomas Cook opens the way for mass international tourism
1857: Central Heating
1857: Sewers and Drainage
1871: Bank Holiday act allowed workers to take holidays--largely focussed upon the seaside resorts
1873/1881: Steam/electric trams (replaced horse drawn trams)
1875/1879: Telephone/Exchange
1881: Electricity (public in 1890s)
1888: Cinema
1890: Chinese settle in London's Limehouse (first Chinatown) until 1963
1896: Cars (replaced experimental automobiles)
1902: Motorised buses
c1911(1920s): Aeroplanes (used first by military)
1911: First Indian restaurant in London
1913: 30 shops and cafes for Chinese people in Limehouse
1928: Television
1930s: Lidos/Open-air swimming pools
1930s: Holiday Camps
1940s: Supermarkets
1940s: Computer and transistor
1945: WWII followed by mass migrations
1950s?: Doctors surgery (replaced doctors in a medical school working in a community)
1967/1970: First 2 Thai restaurants in UK
1969: Internet
1971: Arcade Games
1972: Video game consoles
1972: First Japanese restaurant in UK
1970s: Personal Computers
1991: World Wide Web
1991: First Korean restaurant in New Malden
Bins and Waste Management
Politics/Council/Boroughs
Defensive works and Fortifications
Industry: Draperies, Iron Industry, Dockyards, Engineering, Glassmaking/manufactor, Brickmaking, Lime Burning
Brewing/Malthouses, Papermaking, Gunpowder Brewing, Gunpowder Works, Quarrying, Furnace, Forge, Engineering/Metalworking, Pottery, Tanners, Collieries (coal), Arms Factory, Other Factories
Textiles: Copperas, Fullers Forth, Linen, Silk and other textiles
Leisure/Sport: Pleasure Gardens/Theme Parks (replacing Fairs), Cricket, Golf, Horse Racing, Football Clubs, Inland Sea Sailing, Sporting Venues, Youth Hostel, Zoo, Leisure Centre