Not that long after I first arrived at the cottage I found a leaflet in one of the folders for a circular walk out to a lost village, a few miles south of here.
Perhaps we’re just born romantic – or dreamers – but a Lost Village puts me in mind of something hidden. Something waiting to spring back into existence. Or some thriving little fairy-tale community, which somehow slipped between the folds in the landscape and carried on regardless. And maybe that’s what I was secretly hoping for when I set off on the walk. A sort of East Anglian Shangri-La.
At the very least, I was expecting a couple of ruined cottages. A chimney stack deep in the woods and one or two walls, all choked in ivy. But when I reached the spot where the map claimed the lost village was located all that was visible were a few low mounds in an open field. If you looked hard enough you could make out where there might once have been lanes. Or drains. Or something. But the whole place had essentially been wiped off the face of the earth. The land had healed right over it. And I’m not exaggerating in the least when I say that it scared me half to death.