The feeling persisted until I entered the post office and newsagents in Main Street and realised this is where everyone must have been hiding.

The place was a hive of activity and I counted at least 20 people through the door in the half hour I spent in there, testament to the fact that post offices are still very much a part of village life.

Sub-postmaster Gill Chilver has been living in Burton-in-Kendal for 14 months after moving from Garstang to find her 'ideal community'.

"We looked at many places in the area but the village had all the features we were looking for. It's a very active community, and also a very beautiful area and what we've found since living here has reinforced all the ideas we had.

"The village is really supportive of the post office and the butchers and between us we can pretty much cater for most day to day needs," she said.

Burton-in-Kendal straddles the A6070, four miles north east of Carnforth. It has a population of 1,500, and around 600 houses. The village existed before the Domesday Book was compiled, and it retains many of its old street names such as Boon Walk, Neddy Hill and Tanpits Lane.

Burton Morewood CE Primary School is situated in Main Street, just down the road from the post office.

The 153-pupil school is named after the Rev Morewood, who was the vicar in the village in the mid-19th century. The new school building was built in 1967.

Headteacher Sue Woodburn has been at the school for 16 years, 11 of those as head. She said: "Children come to the school from as far as Priest Hutton and Holme, but most come from the village.

"We're very fortunate here in that we've got a good school field and try to get the children out and about as much as possible. The school has recently been given a healthy schools accreditation and it has a Gold Arts Mark and Active Mark.

"The parents are really supportive and will come in and help out in school and take part in fundraising activities."

Many of the villages events are held at the Memorial Hall, also in Main Street. These include regular painting classes, circuit training, ballet and badminton, as well as performances by Burton Amateur Dramatics Society. The village's pre-school is also held in the Memorial Hall.

The King's Arms Hotel is the only pub in the village. Situated in Main Street, landlords Mike and Zoe Nelson, originally from Kendal, have been running it for five years.

It's a traditional country pub, with a lovely smell of home cooked food, cask ales, large fireplace with original stonework, wooden beams and spacious rooms.

Mike said: "We came in for a drink and fell for the relaxed friendly atmosphere. There's a good mixture of local and travelling customers, and we're ideally situated, 20 minutes from the Lakes and within easy reach of the Yorkshire Dales and Lancaster. Burton has a great sense of community and the people are wonderful."

The pub is holding a beer festival on August Bank Holiday weekend with local bands playing and 15 different ales to choose from.

I met the chairman of Burton-in-Kendal's Parish Council, Francis Mason-Hornby, at the Dalton Hall Business Centre in Dalton Lane, which he also owns.

A descendant of the Hornby family who bought the Dalton Estate in the 17th century, Francis has lived in the area all his life and has recently converted some old farm buildings on the estate into a £1.5million business centre, which was completed last November and now houses a number of businesses employing around 60 people.

Of parish council business he said: "We're a Quality Parish Council consisting of nine councillors, and we meet monthly at the Memorial Hall. We produce a quarterly newsletter which we distribute throughout the village so the community know what we've been up to. We get around £10,000 per year in the budget, which has paid for a number of things including new bus shelters. Affordable housing has been at the top of the agenda in recent years as well."

I couldn't help feeling I should have come to Burton-in-Kendal on a sunny day, even so, the rain certainly hadn't dampened the mood of contentment I found there. Although historically a stop along the way to somewhere else, I could tell why so many chose to stay in this lovely little village.