Shaun Hill

Chagford in Devon is the quintessential English village. Even the local bank is a thatched cottage and in summer the shops, tea rooms and rose-fronted guest houses plant out their hanging baskets which line the streets like coronation bunting. In the village square, cloth-capped pensioners sit side by side on a parish bench clutching their sticks — motionless, silent and staring. If a stranger disturbed their midday reveries to ask the way to Gidleigh Park they might just know it, but it would require a few moments’ thought and anyway the significance of their inquisitor’s impatience would be lost on them.