Years ago, when I was a child [the 50s, mainly], boxes of chocolates were a favourite gift and were almost always adorned with pictures- most often totally unrelated to their contents. A common theme was cosy, thatched cottages with roses around the door. My mother was very fond of boxes of chocolates, so this made buying her a birthday or a Christmas gift very simple.

So all these twee designs on chocolate boxes led to a well-known catch-phrase [at the time] of comparing country cottages to chocolate boxes. If you said a home was like a chocolate box, everyone would know what you meant.

Nowadays though, I doubt very many people would understand the phrase at all. Boxes of chocolates have largely fallen out of fashion and favour and those that do still exist are unlikely to have photos of thatched cottages on the front and a huge red ribbon around them.

The village of Lacock in Wiltshire, though, boasts enough chocolate box cottages to stock large numbers of sweet shops and is the kind of village I imagine overseas tourists dream of visiting, should they want to see traditional British life.

Here, the two main streets host terraces of ancient buildings- half-timbered, thatched, tiny or rambling- all tended and primped for visitors. Among the homes is a village store, a post office, bakery, cafes, pub and gift shops. Outside some of the houses, shelves of home-grown garden plants are on offer- even offering ‘honesty boxes’ for payment!

In addition to all of this historic twee-ness there is the beautiful attraction that is Lacock Abbey [National Trust of course], a huge, majestic pile sitting in vast and beautiful grounds, all as meticulously tended as you would expect from a NT property.

One stunning aspect of the abbey grounds is a buttercup meadow, a sea of yellow cris-crossed with mown paths, the flowers almost tall enough to conceal a person [at least- a short person like myself!]. In the centre is an old tree, wound with something at the top [possibly willow twigs?] looking like a woody planet, and hung with beautiful bracket fungus.

The wooded area is another sea- white this time, of wild garlic, which seems to be having a good year, perhaps due to March’s incessant rain? There is an unmistakeable aroma of garlic as we wind our way nearer to the abbey.

We stop for a quick look at the courtyard- presumably accomodation for the abbey inmates, then pop inside the abbey itself, which is beautiful, hung with paintings and dressed with age appropriate furniture. We finish in the enormous hall which is decked with statues around the walls and an enormous fireplace.

Back outside, we take a moment to visit the large pond, before leaving and going to the cafe, always an obligatory deviation. The sun is out and a cheeky robin visits our table to beg for cake crumbs…now as afternoons go it’s pretty good…

For fiction by me, Jane Deans, search for novels: The Conways at Earthsend [an eco-thriller] and The Year of Familiar Strangers [mystery drama]. Visit my website: janedeans.com