An unlikely Ambridge set down in the Channel Islands, Herm is a little-known gem that is likely to remain so, unless Von Essen opts for wide-scale development. The Wood family and their relatives, who have controlled the island since 1949, have kept the number of self-catering flats and rooms at the White House Hotel to a minimum.

Anyone who does not have accommodation has to leave on the last boat to Guernsey three miles away. As a result, it is difficult to book in high season, because existing visitors tend to book again for the next year. There are a couple of restaurants and a bar, but no cars. Luggage is ferried around by tractor, as is, sometimes, a guest or two.

The island is all of half a mile across, which makes the walk from the hotel to the fabulous Shell Beach an easy one. Full-time residents have tended to be Woods or to have married into the clan, like the present “family directors”, Adrian and Pennie Heyworth, née Wood - a fact made strikingly clear when the family files into the tiny church for Sunday service. Comparisons with the Archers are inevitable.

Take a boat trip to nearby Sark, a quasi-feudal outpost that has just about adjusted to the coming of the bicycle, and you pass Brecqou and the forbidding and highly private home of the Barclay brothers.

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