EARDISLEY in west Herefordshire has two pubs, a Women’s Institute and a place on the blackand- white trail. At the weekend, however, it gained national fame as the home of Charlotte Colquhoun, self-proclaimed heiress and call-girl.

The 37-year-old daughter of multi-millionaire aristocrat Sir Malcolm Colquhoun, Charlotte – or Charlie Foxtrot as she featured on some websites – remains in all other aspects a typical country girl.

Pictured earlier this month in the Hereford Times at the Norton Show – with her reserve champion dog Bracken – Charlotte lives in one of the village’s landmark timber-framed cottages, rides horses and breeds puppies.

And yet by night she would charge upwards of £140 an hour for her services as a ‘courtesan’.

“I’m very, very good at what I do,” said Charlotte, who has since retired from the business.

“I make a lot of money, I support my way of life and I have dogs and race horses.”

And Charlotte says she is not the only woman working in her field in Herefordshire. She insists there are more than 100 private escorts working in the county.

While the sex industry is often called the oldest profession, its evolution to cater to both ends of the spectrum has never been more marked.

And, even in the black and white villages, business is booming, according to Charlotte.

“I have some very nice clients,” she said. “They're respectable working men and I’m just providing a service like anybody else. Why not make money from it?”

One of those services provided was “the girlfriend experience”.

A far cry from dimly-lit city brothels, synonymous with violence, immigration and diseases, the experience offered by Charlotte and her colleagues at the now-defunct agency website thegentlemanschoice.co.uk provided faux-relationships, commitment and intimacy in 60-minute slices.

As with any business, there is a hierarchy – and Charlotte regarded herself among the high-end of the Herefordshire market.

At a time when the recession is hitting people’s pockets, she says trust and personal relationships become increasingly valuable.

Massage parlours and services at private flats are estimated to have seen a drop-off of around a third, however until this weekend Charlotte ran a little black book of more than 70 regulars – “90 percent of whom are married,” she said.

Like those married men, she led a double-life, and this continued online; posting images of her family crest on Facebook, and top-less shots on escort websites.

“I’m sure my father would have a fit if he found out,” she said.

With her story featuring prominently in national newspapers, any veil of secrecy has since been lifted.

The impact of this has been felt both in the village, where Charlotte says she has been subject to torrents of abuse from total strangers, and north of the English border.

Her father, whose ancestral seat is on the shores of Loch Lomond, said: “I feel very sorry for this woman.

“She clearly has a number of problems, all of which are of her own making.”