Having spent 8 out of the previous 10 years living abroad, in New Zealand, Cyprus and Spain, returning to England had a unexpected result for photographer James Blake - England had become a new foreign land. A land full of little villages, "to the man or woman who is desirous of finding the best in this country I commend the English Village" wrote the poet Edmund Blunden just after the Second World War. Even London, that great international city of the world, is in reality a network of little villages.

Based in Cranbrook, Kent James discovered that England was a land full of little village churches and little village pubs - the bedrock and twin sisters of English society (one of virtue, the other of vice), a land full of statues and stained glass, of old village shops and village people, of blue skies and green fields, of ruined castles and ruined priories, of ancient history and modern street art, all hidden in the countryside of England's 'green and pleasant land'.

From Sunderland to Poole, from Dittisham to Dover, and from the over 75 other places that James managed to visit and photograph, one thing struck James more than anything else - that the heart of England was village life and the heart of village life was the village pub - and if the heart of the village was the village pub then, unlike any other country in the world, the heart of the nation was also the village pub. James would go one step further than Blunden and commend to anyone desirous of knowing what is best of this country to go visit the odd village pub or two!

Sometimes it takes going away and then coming back for us to discover what one's own country is really all about.