The village of Ashton Hayes, set in the gently rolling hills of Cheshire, north-west England, is the kind of place that logically shouldn't exist anymore outside of Ambridge, the sun-dappled home of BBC Radio 4's rural soap opera The Archers. Despite a diminutive population of 1,000, it has somehow retained a pub, a church, a nursery and a village hall, as well as a full platoon of Women's Institute, Brownies and Scout troops. Unlike other villages, it has not suffered any sprawling developments of executive homes on its outskirts: the green belt has halted expansion since the 1960s.

Bathed in spring sunshine and alive with raucous birdsong, the village glows with a sense of neighbourly pride. A well-fed golden retriever chasing its tail in the middle of the main road is grabbed by a passing villager and frogmarched to its owner. Residents in their Mercedes SUVs and Jeep Cherokees raise a finger from the steering wheel in salutation as they thunder past yellow cottages covered in honeysuckle.