The Ringstead village sign pays tribute to the farming communities who worked this land for centuries. But do you know which heritage building was once a hotbed of revolutionary thought?

This circular walk runs along the High Street past the Gin Trap (a beautiful 17th century coaching inn perfect for snug winter drinks), the Old School, St. Andrew’s Church and Ringstead Towermill.

And it’s in the Towermill a group of European left-wing intellectuals once gathered to discuss philosophy, politics and biology. Built around 1840, the mill ceased working at the turn of the last century. It was purchased in 1927 by Professor Francis Cornford and his wife Frances, granddaughter of Charles Darwin. They converted the mill into a house and hosted meetings of the grandly named Theoretical Biology Club, known as ‘one of the most interesting study circles in the field of the philosophy of science’.

Literature lovers might know about the Cornfords’ son, John, a young poet killed fighting in the Spanish Civil War. In the 1930s John Cornford stayed at Ringstead Mill with his lover, the scholar Margot Heinemann. He wrote what’s considered one of the great love poems of the 20th century for her, paraphrasing their idol, Karl Marx: “Heart of the heartless world…”

Gazing across bright fields of green winter wheat, you’re a world away from the knowing chatter of city universities. How strange to think of Nobel Prize winners debating the origins of life right here in a north-west Norfolk windmill.