"Magical" books about England:

News From Nowhere
A Dream Of John Ball
The Pilgrims Of Hope

by William Morris.

Can I just add: Mark O'Brien's "When Adam Delved and Eve Span", Christopher Hill's "Liberty Against the Law" and Christopher Hibbert's "The English"?

"By the way, I live in a village, with church bells and a green."

I live in a village which has the remains of the only castle in East Yorkshire. The castle was built by Harry Hotspur and legend has it that he took all the men of the village to fight at the Battle of Otterburn, where they were all (except Hotspur) killed. The local "squire" still owns the castle and a large tranch of the land around and still likes to think he can all the shots on the parish council. He is, however, now opposed (by mrsleveller, so maybe thinks have changed just a little in th last 600 years.