This little village of Stanton is just three and a half miles southwest of Broadway. It sits on the very edge of the western escarpment of the Cotswolds and, like its neighbour Stanway, epitomises the unchanged beauty of this extraordinary region.

Those of us who mind a great deal about the conservation of the Cotswolds talk a lot about the way in which the tin-eared developers and their ilk are slowly destroying the ancient beauty of this extraordinary place, but once in the while we come across somewhere that shows just how it’s still possible to hold back the tide of brutal, ugly modernity, and we celebrate.

Stanton Church, dedicated to St Micheal and originally built by the monks of Winchcombe in the 12th century, retains its Norman arcade on the north side of the nave but the rest is of a later date.

The village cross, just at the bottom of the lane that leads to the church, has a lovely little sundial let into its top southern facade. Still as good a way for the villagers to check on the time as ever it was. At least when the sun’s shining.

On the north-western edge of the village are some houses that epitomise the conflict there so often can be between those of us who really want to protect the beauty of this region and those whose priorities lie elsewhere. In the early 1950s some social housing was built by the local authority. Four new homes, built to the west of the village by Cheltenham Rural District Council, to be named Wedgwood Cottages thus preserving the name of Miss Eliza Wedgewood, the daughter of a much-admired local rector. During the Festival of Britain in 1951 the cottages won special praise as fine examples of rural housing.