Meet the Man who lived as a gnome

Britain is well known for its fair share of eccentrics and colourful characters. But it is said an Englishman’s home is his castle and perhaps no more so than for the late Ron Broomfield.

For Ron, there’s no place like ‘gnome’ and for once that cliché is very true; he was so convinced that an Englishman’s castle is his gnome that he’s called his house “Gnome Cottage”. The former London window cleaner regularly got gnomes sent to him from all over the World.

Every Wednesday Ron turned into a gnome for the day. He dressed up and went shopping in his local village and for the rest of the day, he carried out repairs on broken gnomes, and retouches any faded paintwork. He sadly died in 2015 and was cremated in the gnome outfit he regularly wore.

Ron was well known locally and on the whole, celebrated as one of the areas and Britain's most colourful characters.