MURDER, political intrigue, the break up of two aristocratic families, the scandals of an heiress running off with a poor curate and a squire who took a young maid as his mistress.

If it sounds like the plot of a play or film, you'd be wrong -- it's just an everyday story of country folk.

It's said that truth is stranger than fiction. It certainly is if a new lavishly illustrated book, which lifts the lid on the sleepy Archers village of Hanbury, is anything to go by.

The Lost World of Hanbury, The Village in the Forest of Feckenham, has just gone on sale. It is the work of local historian Dr Alan Richards and a couple who are making their debuts as authors.

Alan, from Broom Park, Bromsgrove has been lecturing and writing on history for more than 40 years and this is his tenth book.

His co-authors are Bernard and Olive Poultney.

Both are members of old Worcestershire families and are familiar figures as they ride around the village on their tractors as they have done for almost 50 years.

They live in a bungalow in an idyllic spot at Sharpway Gate. Bernard was Bailiff of Dodderhill Common for more than 20 years.

It's their collection of superb old photographs, drawings and maps that the book is based on.

It took 18 months to write and Alan acknowledges he was helped by the numerous notes, anecdotes and reminiscences of scores of villagers which the couple have collected over many years and which Olive has meticulously typed up.

Their collection of photos and documents gives a fascinating glimpse of a rural way of life which has all but vanished.

Indeed, it was the couple's realisation that the village was changing from what for centuries had been a mainly self-contained community supplying most of its own needs from coffins to cider, that prompted them to start collecting.

"They did all the spadework, I simply came along and put it all together," said Alan.

The book highlights many aspects of village life seen through the eyes of those who lived there, the ploughman, cobbler, publican, parson and squire to name but a few.

There's humour too. It was said the families of the bellringers knew when their menfolk had supped enough cider in the church belfry on New Year's Eve by the sound of the peals ringing out on the frosty air.

Not surprisingly there's a chapter devoted to the Archers which despite the late creator Godfrey Baseley's frequent denials was reckoned to be the model for Ambridge.

Several buildings including the church and school have been used in BBC publications about the long running radio soap.

The splendid Mere Hall, for example, has been used as a model for Grey Gables.

Alan said he found Bernard and Olive's collection, which he calls a social historian's dream come true, quite by chance.

His meeting with them came about when he appealed through the Advertiser/Messenger for information while researching his previous book, Worcestershire Privies, and they responded.

If the Archers are fictional Hanbury residents, the Vernons were not. They were squires from 1631 until 1940.

The last was Sir George, known in higher social circles as The Old Reprobate. He was a lusty womaniser of the type typically portrayed in Victorian melodramas.

He hated the tithe system and what he called "snivelling" parsons they supported. He even threatened to shoot one.

Sir George took as his mistress Ruth Powick a young maid at Hanbury Hall. When he eventually shot himself in a bedroom at the hall, she was 29 and he was 74.

Ruth inherited his vast estate.

It was said he took his own life when it was rumoured he faced being arrested for sympathising with British Fascist leader Sir Oswald Moseley who was a frequent visitor to the hall.

In 1806, a Hanbury man was one of a gang who murdered the rector of nearby Oddingley during a dispute over tithes.

Alan said this is the first book to give an overall view of Hanbury's history during the last 3,000 years.

It records after the Second World War the end of the "squirearchy" and the feudal dependence on the two major landowning families, the Bearcrofts, of Mere Hall, and the Vernons. The old ways had gone forever.

Villagers would never again have to doff their caps or curtsy to the well to do when they met in the lanes around the village.

But half a century on it was again land and its acquisition which was the main topic of discussion in the Vernon Arms pub.

This time it was powerful property developers who were intent on building a satellite village.

They dropped the idea after a spirited campaign by residents.

The book is on sale priced £16.50 at Ottakar's, in Bromsgrove High Street, and the Jinney Ring Craft Centre at Hanbury.

Alternatively it can be bought directly from Dr Richards on (01527) 833077.