IT'S so quiet at Heather Jansch's remote coach house near Newton Abbot that only the distant murmur of traffic at the very end of her land betrays what century you are in.
From her main living room – now nearing completion as the house is extended – you can see just trees, a lush hillside and a glimpse of sky.
Beside me the sculptor gives off a feeling of absolute contentment, a woman at one with herself and nature.
'I feel as though I've come home, in a sense, because I was born at the end of a track. We lived at the end of an unmade road that was about four miles long.'
Her home – part old workshop, part new build, wholly concentrated effort – is difficult to find (but not quite as difficult as I made it seem) yet a hive of activity.
For here is the centre from which knowledge of Heather Jansch and her extraordinary work – mostly with driftwood – is spreading outwards like ripples.
Already she has work on show at the Eden Project and at the National Trust's Cotehele in Cornwall as well as in Guernsey
Teignbridge Council has a relief of her's on display in the foyer of its Forde House headquarters, and she is a regular exhibitor at an exclusive art gallery in Stockbridge.
Now she is to be the subject of a special edition of Carlton Television's Country Lives.
When I arrive - guided by mobile phone - she is busy cataloguing her work, watched over by a collection of her amazing driftwood horses
standing proudly in the yard.
There is a photographer on hand, waiting for some adequate light on a humid June afternoon, and two men who help her collect and steady the large pieces of wood with which she usually works.
Small of stature, but big of heart, she inspires the obvious question - why horses?
'I was one of those kids that was obsessed by them – totally' she said. 'I lived and dreamed them. One of the stories that touched me really deeply at that age was Black Beauty.
'We lived in the country and I was just surrounded by them, although I learned to ride on a goat.'
She 'loved the smell of them,' though is at something of a loss to explain why she liked them more than other animals. 'That led to really studying them.'
Her sculptures exude power, I point out and she agrees; 'It does seem like that. It was the inclusion of wood in the first instance that gave them that strength and gradually over the years it's become the principal working material.'
The driftwood horses in the yard seem to have a life of their own, an uncanny motion that you have to see to believe.
'Partly that's because of your own momentum. Each time you take a breath or move slightly, what happens is that the scenery behind shifts and changes and as you walk past them it seems to animate them. All the shapes change slightly because you can see into them and through them.'
When the light is on them - and it was very dull on the day we met- at the end of the day 'they do seem to breathe,' she said.
Heather didn't start sculpting until quite late but as a child she drew horses endlessly - so much so that her art master actually banned her from drawing them.
'He was one of my heroes,' she confides, with a subtle glint in her eyes. 'He had an open Sunbeam Talbot and he used to sometimes give me lifts which was strictly forbidden.'
Incredibly,when she was just three or four years old she knew what she wanted to be when she grew up. 'I didn't know what it entailed but I certainly knew there wasn't any other life for me. I was going to be an artist and live in the country with a long white house and woods and streams and horses - ducks, pigs, chickens the lot..
'There was never any question of what I was going to be and life through school was just a logical progression towards that.'
So no dream of marriage and children? 'I did get married and I did have children - my son is now 30 - but certainly not as a young girl. My dreams weren't about fairy weddings they were about living in the country, having my own horses (she has two) and wielding paint brushes.'
Reading Irving Stone's biography of Michaelangelo The Agony and the Ecstasy switched her interest from painting to sculpture. 'I realised I wanted to work in three dimensions. My father was responsible for establishing an interest in construction at a very young age. I wanted some rabbits and he said, yes, you can have a rabbit but you must build the cage.
He took her into his workshop – a 'fairyland junkyard of assembled bits' a little like her own – most of which he had hoarded. 'We just used to collect rubbish and build things from it.'
The lessons she learned there have helped her as she prepares to deliver the next exhibit to Eden - a stork's nest, with a splendidly knowledgeable bird sitting on top of it. 'That was fun to do,' she grins. 'It was difficult to start, but I think the driftwood works particularly well with feathers. What I had promised them was something with its wings spread, just landing on the nest, but to try and find driftwood that is thin enough to use as wings is very difficult so I am still looking for that. When we get the right pieces we'll make it'
The sheer volume of driftwood at her home is something of a surprise.
'It comes in fits and starts,' she explains. 'What you need is high tides a big storm, and an onshore wind. We do use a vast quantity, and what doesn't get used gets put in the wood burner.'
Although the initial stage of construction happens quite fast once the sculptures are complete she likes 'to keep them around,' so she can look at them from all different angles, tinkering with them, before finally letting them go to her clients.
So what sort of person buys - a very expensive - Heather Jansch? 'I don't think there is any such thing as a typical client. Some people buy for investment but I would say they are in the minority. Most people buy them because they move them in some way. Some say we won't have a holiday this year - we'll have a sculpture instead.'
Country Lives - Heather Jansch will be broadcast on Carlton Television on July 30.