Toft is a small

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

in the county of

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

, England, just south of, and within the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Dunchurch Dunchurch is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Rugby, approximately south-west of central Rugby, Warwickshire, Rugby in Warwickshire, England. The civil parish, which also includes the nearby hamlet of Toft, Warwickshire, Toft, had ...

, just off the

A426 road The A426 road is a road in England. It runs from the city of Leicester to the market town of Southam in Warwickshire via the towns of Lutterworth and Rugby. History Until the M1 motorway was completed in the 1960s this route formed the mai ...

and south of the

M45 motorway The M45 is a motorway in Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, England and is long. It runs between junction 17 of the M1 motorway south east of Rugby, Warwickshire, Rugby and a junction with the A45 road southwest of Rugby. It has one of the lo ...

. To the west Toft overlooks

Draycote Water Draycote Water is a reservoir and country park near the village of Dunchurch, south of Rugby in Warwickshire, England, owned and operated by Severn Trent Water. It draws its water from the River Leam, and supplies drinking water to Rugby ...

(a modern reservoir), across which lies the village of Thurlaston. The hamlet was first mentioned in the 15th century. It sits on a hill known as Toft Hill.

Alpaca farming

Alpaca herd on Toft Hill overlooking Draycote - geograph

The fields around Toft are home to a herd of around 150

alpacas The alpaca (''Lama pacos'') is a species of South American camelid mammal. Traditionally, alpacas were kept in herds that grazed on the level heights of the Andes of Southern Peru, Western Bolivia, Ecuador, and Northern Chile. More recently ...

, which are native to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. The animals are bred for their wool and as pets by Toft Alpacas, which is based at Toft Manor. Alpaca farming was started locally in 1997, when the retired theatre director Rob Bettinson and wife Shirley moved to Toft Manor and bought their first four alpacas.

References

External links

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Toft Alpacas
Hamlets in Warwickshire {{Warwickshire-geo-stub