 With its setting in Yorkshire, England, the name of the lost village "Hobb's End" and other local references, it was always suggested that Robinson based the location on the real life lost village of "West End", the ruins of which lie under Thruscross reservoir (also in Yorkshire).Robinson himself confirmed this in a podcast he recorded for Yorkshire Water in 2007, eight years after the novel was first published.During exceptionally dry summers, the remains of West End have been exposed as the reservoir dries up, just as the fictional Hobb's End is in this novel.