A hamlet is a small settlement that has no central place of worship and no meeting point, for example, a village hall. Picture a handful of houses dotted along a road or a crossroads, perhaps separated from other settlements by countryside or farmland.

The word comes from Anglo-Norman hamelet, corresponding to Old French hamelet, the diminutive of Old French hamel meaning a little village. This, in turn, is a diminutive of Old French ham, possibly borrowed from (West Germanic) Franconian languages.

The term is used a number of times in the guidance for preparing evidence for planning decisions; a settlement hierarchy starts with an isolated dwelling, then hamlet, then village, town, city then a conurbation.

He noted that “the Oxford Dictionary defines a village as a group of houses and associated buildings, larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town, situated in a rural area. It defines a hamlet as a small settlement, generally one smaller than a village, and strictly (in Britain) one without a Church.”