Hi! I was born and raised in Shropshire & never thought I'd see my home county in a game. I got a kick out of seeing The Chinese Room's representation of it, some things they did really well, others were a little more lol :D

For anyone wondering if Yaughton is a real place - it's not. There is a village called Yorton north of the country town Shrewsbury which matches a few of the characteristics, but Yaughton is more of an amalgamation of components that are typical of Shropshire villages. The geography as seen in the map doesn't represent any real place, and whilst we do have railways - none of them are electrified, even 30 years later in 2016 ;)

Some of the things that are real ....
Phone boxes - even with the advent of mobile phones, these are still around and do sometimes get used. The ones seen in the game are a classic design, there are still rather a lot of them about although they are getting rarer

Post boxes - these are pretty accurate! I can tell you now that the end of the world probably happened at the weekend, because all the postboxes list the next collection day as Monday. The only thing missing is the Royal crest - you can tell how old a postbox is because the reigning monarch's initials/monogram will be on the front - so 'E II R' for Elizabeth the second, or any postbox installed since the 50s

The pubs .... yes - these are fairly representative of country pubs, but the parasols are rather optimistic ;)

The houses - yes, there are a lot of thatched cottages in Shropshire, they really are pretty. The more modern houses can be from a variety of different eras, the game is fairly representative

The church - the most recognisable thing about the church is the Lychgate, that's the kind of porch thing near the road. It's very common and was used as a resting place for pallbearers. A lot of them are also used for placing wreaths from rememberance ceremonies. The church itself is pretty generic, and the graveyard is very typical.

Railway station - yes very. Only thing out of place is the electrification, and I'm fairly certain all the lines are double track. Another thing of note, the de-railed carriages are labelled 'Western Rail' however 1984 is before the railways were privatised, so they should have been labelled British Rail. The signal box is extremely well done, very typical of the Victorian hand operated signals that we still have today (there's one about 200m from where I'm typing this!)

Colloquialisms - I spotted two ... 'Ow bist', which is 'how are you?' although it could also be 'how bist mon?' or 'a bist?'
The other was a local saying, although used in slightly the wrong context - 'There are dead birds all around the Wrekin'. The Wrekin is a large hill and landmark in north / central Shropshire. 'All around the Wrekin' is either used as a toast 'All friends around the Wrekin' or as an expression along the lines of 'going around the houses' eg. you went all round The Wrekin to get to so and so's house

Less real are the accents - it sounds a bit Archers, ie. West Country. We don't all talk like farmers here ;) Stephen's accent is probably most representative, and you'll probably find a large share of west midlands / gentle brummy accents :)

So lastly, if Yaughton was real, where would it be?

There are a few clues in the game which point towards one location or the other .....
The church is in the diocese of Stiperstones. The Stiperstones is a real place, south of Shrewsbury and there is a village of the same name with a great pub. It's not a diocese though (it does have some awesome legends attached - The Devil's Chair & Wild Edric)

The railway station timetable shows trains to Shrewsbury and Wrexham, which would place it in the northwest of the county as that's where that rail line is.

There is an observatory in Knighton (extreme southwest) and another (I think) around Pontesbury (midwest). Overall the geography points to the Shropshire hills, but I can't really narrow it down (the clues are contradictory!)

So in short, west of the county - but a toss up as to where exactly ;)

I don't know who reads these things, but if anyone has questions about Shropshire or the game I'd be happy to answer :)