Every nation feeds off a fantastical past, yet each fantasises in its own way. The English ways include the fantasy that the heart of England beats not in the town but in the country – and, moreover, that this rural world takes the form of a landscape, which is to say: a view from afar. For the most part, the English, particularly the middle classes, would prefer that not too many people get in the way of that view. Latterly, the English landscape has even begun to merge into “nature”, preferabl