Jakob Grimshaw has eked out a precarious living as a Staffordshire moorland farmer by selling off some of his land to Gabriel Frankwell, a local businessman, who seized the opportunity to build a select development of nine houses, the Prospect Farm Estate. But having been sold a rural idyll, the residents of the estate quickly realise that they do not like Grimshaw's old farm building - surely such an eyesore will mean their properties will depreciate in value? And so the war begins ... each inhabitant with his or her own reason for wanting Grimshaw to move away. What none of the residents.