A fantasy in the frost
WINTER is a good season in rural Northamptonshire. Mornings are crisp and the hedges that trim the narrow roads are precisely shaped, their tops pointed like the roof of a church. Driving through the quiet stone villages feels like motoring in a land that time forgot.
On arriving at the gates of the Old Rectory at Quinton, the fictional atmosphere is perfected when the carved gates magically open. A tangle of foxgloves and grasses wrought in iron allow a hint of sweeping drive, leading to cloud-pruned trees and circles of cobbles set in gravel.
Behind the gates, Quinton’s parish church is
