Mrs Henderson Presents… Judi Dench, Will Young and Kelly Reilly

(Above): the last light fading behind the pine plantations

Sunday. Late afternoon was merging into early evening as I drove down the wide straight streets of an isolated and forgotten Edwardian spa town, the last light fading behind the pine plantations that encompass the little resort. I was early, and so I drove around for about twenty minutes - all the time it took to survey the four main avenues that make up the place. The settlement has a great deal of architectural unity (Pevsner calls the style “large, affluent and soporific”) , being constructed between about 1880 and 1920. Lots of very small shops (none of them chain stores), tea houses, care homes and rest homes. A vast, rambling, half-timbered hotel adjacent to a golf course. Other hotels, just as substantial but not so gargantuan. Gothic Roman Catholic church, sizeable red-brick arts and crafts Anglican church. Set back from the road and protected by shrubberies were private villas, detached and discreet, enveloped by the pine woods beyond.