Thorpeness began as a whimsical fantasy holiday seaside village, the brainchild of Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie in the early part of the 20th century. There's a lot of mock Tudor architecture.  It is famous for its House in the Clouds. There is a boating lake, a pub, golf course, tennis courts, walking - a very quiet, gentile, kind of place.

The pretty Cornish village of Polperro has been a fishing port since at least medieval times and a magnet for visitors, including artists, for as long as anyone can remember. Narrow streets between quaint old flower-decked cottages mean that tourists are not able to drive their cars to the harbour, but there are carriages available – and boat trips too, when you get there.  The village’s name probably derives from the old Cornish ‘porth’ for ‘harbour’ and means ‘harbour of a man called Pyra’, but what is certain is its notoriety for smuggling in the 18th and 19th centuries – which has contributed to a rich folklore and is illustrated in the Polperro Heritage Museum of Smuggling and Fishing overlooking the harbour.  Pilchards, apparently, were once a particular speciality for Polperro’s fishermen, while other members of the family were employed in processing them.  It is still a working fishing port as well as a popular tourist destination.  There is an annual Art Festival in June and the village has a renowned Fishermen’s Choir.

NB Don't rely on your Sat Nav - park outside the village and walk or take a carriage to the harbour.

Lacock is one of those places that are almost frozen in another time. In this small picture-perfect Wiltshire village of about 350 souls, there are few overt trappings of the 21st century: no satellite dishes or TV aerials, no yellow lines, and only a small amount of signage – which anyway appears to be easily removable. Blank out the cars and rough-up the road surface a little and you’re transported back to the past, albeit a sanitised version where every building is immaculately maintained. Which explains why Lacock is one of the UK’s premier locations for filming period dramas, like Pride and Prejudice and Cranford. The village is owned by the National Trust.

Once there was East Firle and West Firle but nowadays it is generally simply ‘Firle’.  The village has been a settlement since at least Saxon times and was mentioned in the Domesday Survey, its name coming from the Anglo-Saxon ‘Fierol’, meaning ‘oak covered land’ – though that was long ago as these days the village nestles in the lee of the largely treeless South Downs, Firle Beacon in particular. The village is essentially a single street, and a cul-de-sac, its houses attractive mixtures of warm tile, brick and flint. The reason the road goes nowhere is because the old road that ran at the foot of the South Downs between Brighton and Eastbourne closed in 1812. There were once three pubs, apparently; now just one, the popular Ram Inn. The village also has a cricket ground, post office and medieval church, St Peter’s. Virginia Woolf once rented a house in Firle.  Nearby is Firle Place, a medieval manor with Georgian exterior that has been owned by the Gage family since the 15th century. There's a good-sized car park on the edge of the village.

Empingham is an attractive village, with a striking looking church, on the road between Stamford and Oakham.  It sits in the Gwash Valley at the dam (eastern) end of Rutland Water and there has been a settlement there since at least Saxon times (the name means something like ‘the settlement of the followers of Empa’.)  The church, St Peter’s, is mostly 15th century, but dates from the 13th century; its impressive tower is 14th century.  Most of the village’s buildings date from the late 18th/ and 19th centuries.

To the north east near Tickencote is the site of the Battle of Empingham, also known as Battle of Losecoat Field, which was fought on 12 March 1470 during the Wars of the Roses. It was a very short battle and a victory for the Yorkists.