It does all the things you hope a Cotswold village will do. It nestles in a fold in the hills, wrapped up and protected from the wild winds from the west; the steep lanes are lined with lovely 17th century cottages, built just haphazardly enough so as not to create a regimented feel.

The local building stone we have come to love so much, dug from the ground no more than a few miles from here, gives that wonderful warm glow to the place. It feels almost as though it has risen from the earth of its own accord.

It seems to illustrate a more simple way of life from an earlier age, where the human race lived by the sweat of its brow, using what ever came to hand to build shelter, huddling together for warmth, protection and support against a harsh outside world. It’s a cosy and comforting image, and, of course, almost a complete fantasy.

The truth is that life for the people who built these lovely cottages was harsh. Poverty was grinding and life was extremely fragile. Having said that their legacy is amazing. My instinct is to be delighted that there seems to be very little invasion of the 21st or even 20th century in Snowshill. And it is true that the housing developers seem to have been largely kept at bay, but even the preconception that modern additions are always unwelcome is challenged in this village.

The church, standing as it does in the very centre of the village is, by local standards, extremely modern. The villagers have been worshiping here since around the middle of the first millenuim. Noone seems to know what happenned to the original church, but the one we see today was built as recently as 1864.