The village of Brocton is a small jewel in the county of Stafford but its real appeal lies in the wide open spaces next door.
Think of a village green and it is easy to imagine a large grassy space, perhaps big enough for a cricket pitch, maybe a maypole, almost certainly a duck pond.
In all honesty, the village green at Brocton in Staffordshire would be hard pressed to find room for the duck, let alone the pond. The daffodil-covered triangle is little bigger than a traffic roundabout in the middle of the pretty village.
However, this doesn't stop Brocton from being one of the most popular locations for house buyers in the county.
The main reason is what it may lack in open space at the centre of the village, it more than makes up for at the edges as it is sits directly next to the significantly vaster expanses of Cannock Chase.
Just how close the Chase is might be driven home by the fact that residents have to fence off their gardens to stop the deer from getting in and eating their plants and shrubs.
Paul Barnes, associate partner with estate agents John German, says: "Of all the villages immediately surrounding Stafford, Brocton is one of the most sought after.
"It is an aspirational community. People very rarely move put of Brocton once they have moved there other than for business or family reasons."
Part of its appeals, he believes, lies in the fact that the Chase's area of outstanding natural beauty status protects Brocton from over-development.
The village is compact. It has a shop and post office, a church and a village hall. The nearest pub is The Chetwynd Arms on the Cannock Road. A 300-year-old farmhouse, it was originally owned by the Chetwynd family, who also held Chedbrough Hall.
There is no school, although a short history of Brocton on the village website reveals that in 1671 Dame Dorothy Bridgeman left £40 in her will for the establishment of a school for poor children.
Two hundred years later, it had student population of seven girls and five boys. In 1904, it was closed and the land sold. Records also show that in the mid 19th century a Joseph Hawkins ran a boys school in Pool Lane.
Another draw for families these days is that it falls within the catchment area of Walton High School in Stafford, a state school with a good academic reputation.
Robert Mudway is the chairman of the parish council, which has achieved quality parish status, and has lived in Brocton since the 1960s.
He believes one of the reasons the village is so attractive to house hunters is its combination of easy access to the countryside and community spirit.
"It is part of an AONB right at the edge of the Chase, so there are lots of places to walk, but it is also a very friendly place," he says. "We have got the village hall which is very active. I understand that it used to be a Nissen hut from the old military camp on the Chase - during the First World War the camp at Brocton was big enough to accommodate more than 20,000 soldiers - and the current hall was built around the time of the Coronation in 1953.
"It has a playgroup which is very well attended and which recently received a very good Ofsted report.
"There is a women's institute, whist drives, flower arranging, keep-fit. Brownie packs come to stay for the weekend and we have our own Brocton Brownie pack.
"There are also quizzes, we had a Burns night event earlier in the year and we will be having a St George's day celebration with entertainment from the Knights of St George. We expect that to be a sell-out.
"We also have the post office and shop. There is actually a notice in the window saying that it is not threatened with closure, although a number of villages in the area, like Bednall and Acton Trussell, have lost theirs."
Although Brocton is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Broctone, it took several centuries for religion to gain a permanent foothold.
The village history records a lay evangelist Brother Booth being appointed in 1889 to conduct services. He had previously been holding them in one of the cottages on the green, then in Brocton Hall, and started collecting funds for a permanent place of worship. The Mission Room, now All Saints, was opened near the green in 1891.
Architecturally speaking, the village is a mix of old world charm and the sleeker lines of the 60s and 70s.
There are picturesque black and white farmhouses, modern extensions that still hint at their original use as barns, detached mid 20th century executive/family homes and even quirkier builds, like the aptly-named Woodville, a timber house that looks as if it has been spirited in from Scandinavia.
"All the houses are a bit different," says Paul Barnes. "We are currently selling a house called the Swedish House. The gentleman that owned it had bought a piece of land and imported what he needed to build this house from Sweden. In its day, it was quite ahead of its time.
"Because it is in an area of outstanding natural beauty, the amount of development that can take place is very limited.
"There are no big housing estates. It is more usual for developers to buy old houses which they knock down and build on the plot and in the garden. I think at most you would only see two or three houses built together."
The exclusivity, combined with easy access to local motorway links on the M6 and being within a few miles of Stafford and Cannock and less than half an hour to Lichfield, and the generous size of many of the houses - some of them only reached via private driveways - means that house prices are on the high side.
"A lot of the houses are in excess of £600,000," says Mr Barnes. "We have got one for sale at £795,000 but there a couple in the village centre that are worth about £1 million.
"The village is also in close proximity to Shugborough and Milford Common and it is on the south side of Stafford which, on the whole, tends to be more expensive.
"You can get semis at around £250,000; when it comes to detached homes, there is really nothing under £350,000. But if you have £500,000 to a million and a quarter and you want to live in a village, you would like Brocton."
