It is the world’s most heavily fortified border, a no man’s land that marks the last front of the Cold War.

Now though, just south of the demilitarised zone (DMZ), close to Britain’s most desperate Korean War battlefield, stands a new kind of English stronghold: an English-themed tourist town.

Dubbed “English Village”, the resort is located outside the town of Paju. Here, after passing “passport control”, eager South Koreans immerse themselves in all things English – visiting a post office, making calls from a British-style red telephone box and sampling beer and fish and chips in a traditional-style pub while overlooking mock-ups of Stonehenge and a Georgian town hall.

The 227,000 sq m theme park, which opened in 2006, accommodates up to 700 Koreans. An adjacent “art village” boasts a café that offers views into the mysterious North.

The developments are representative of the new face of Korea’s infamous border area. Signs of the tension between South Korea and its secretive northern neighbour remain nearby. Heading north on the Chayuro (“Freedom”) Expressway just north of Seoul’s 2002 World Cup stadium, what looks like a huge concrete bridge looms over the Hyundais zooming by below. It is designed to be blown up, blocking the route, in the event of a North Korean invasion. Farther north, the countryside is dotted with bunkers and army bases.

Traditional DMZ tourism includes day trips from Seoul to the truce village of Panmunjom and North Korean infiltration tunnels. Future possibilities were enticing, Oh Jee Chul, president of the Korea Tourism Organisation, said. “For more than 50 years the DMZ has had little to no human intervention and has become one of Asia’s greatest nature preserves,” Mr Oh, who has signed a deal to develop DMZ tourism with the military, said. “We hope to focus on promoting these aspects, along with sites that tell the story of the Korean War.”

It is all a far cry from the scenes that Private George Newhouse, 85, of the Gloucestershire Regiment remembers. On a low hill overlooking the Imjin river last Saturday American and South Korean officers asked the pensioner, on his first trip here since the war, to recount his experiences in one of the great war stories of modern times.

“We radioed targets,” Mr Newhouse recalled, “and the gunners said, ‘You have got more targets than we have got guns!’ ” In April 1951 Britain’s 29th Infantry Brigade fought desperately to blunt one of the key prongs of the largest Chinese offensive of the war. On April 25 the Northumberland Fusiliers, the Royal Ulster Rifles and the attached Belgian Battalion struggled out of a closing trap as Chinese troops – outnumbering the brigade 8-1 – swarmed over their line of retreat. Tanks of the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars fought to stem the tide in an action its regimental history describes as a “death ride”.

For the Gloucesters it was too late. Surrounded and out of ammunition they tried to break out. Of 660 men, 44 escaped. The rest were killed or, like Mr Newhouse, captured.

Mr Newhouse, in South Korea with a group of 80 Commonwealth veterans, described the new country as “tremendous”. “There should be no other war,” he said.

Conflict zone

— On June 25, 1950, more than 100,000 North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel. Fighting ended in July 1953.

— Negotiations produced no agreement. Korea remains divided by the demilitarised zone (DMZ)

— The DMZ is 2.4 by 155 miles. It cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, at the 38th parallel, and is home to many endangered species

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, DMZ forum

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