Angela Wintle is enchanted by the 600 alpacas that graze in the shadow of the Sussex opera house

The approach to Glyndebourne Opera House is a lush landscape, all low-lying flowering meadows, high hedges and verges strewn with lacy cow parsley, and about as English picture-book pastoral as you'll find anywhere.

	Friendly face: Breeder Philip O'Conor with his alpacas

But then you happen upon the alpacas, a whole field full of animals more at home 5,000ft above sea level in the thin air of the High Andes.

This camelid family offshoot has proved nothing if not adaptable. The 600-strong herd living at Glyndebourne Farm, at the foot of the South Downs, is now as much a part of the sylvan Sussex scene as the opera house itself.

Not that you'd know it, judging by the reaction of unsuspecting motorists spotting these South American aliens for the first time. Indeed, the stretch of road bordering the fields has probably witnessed more emergency stops than anywhere in the county.

"We've had endless dings and bashes," says Philip O'Conor, owner of Atacama Alpacas. "Often, the road is chaotic as drivers speed around the corner, see the alpacas and slam on the brakes.

One vehicle actually did a somersault over a hedge. And another went right through a fence, around the main field and out via a gate. We've even found ourselves on the main sight-seeing route for pensioners' coach outings and it's nose-to-tail on a daily basis."

O'Conor, 41, grew up in South America and is one of few British alpaca breeders with experience of the animals in their natural environment. Alpacas thrive in the British climate, although the one thing they don't like is prolonged rain. (What animal does?)

O'Conor began importing them from South America to Britain after meeting an alpaca exporter in Chile in the mid-Nineties, who invited him to put together a shipment bound for Australia.

Some years later, the same exporter asked if he would set up a substantial alpaca business in Britain. O'Conor accepted and has since established the Glyndebourne Farm herd as one of the largest in Europe. Now he has taken over the farm and gone into business on his own, breeding animals for sale and harvesting their prized wool for use in his online clothing company.

As he drives me around his 283-acre estate, I watch a group of the animals contentedly grazing beside a fence, their vanilla, honey and cappuccino-coloured coats offering up nature's answer to the muted shades of the Farrow & Ball paint palette.

O'Conor assures me that they make great pets because they are intelligent, curious, calm, gentle and very amenable. Then there's the "cute" factor. It's hard to resist those two large, expressive eyes peering between clouds of the softest fleece. And the love affair is mutual. Indeed, O'Conor tries not to "socialise" them when they are too young because "they'd always want a kiss and cuddle, and you wouldn't be able to do anything with them".

Touchingly, they also form close alpaca friendships. "We have two males, Twiglet and Peebo, who are absolutely inseparable. If you split them up, one, in particular, will pine terribly and look for the friend he can't find. In those instances, we always sell the alpacas together on the understanding they should never be separated."

Native to Peru, Chile and Bolivia, the alpaca was first domesticated by ancient Andeans more than 5,000 years ago. They still look strangely alien in an English field, but actually they have been among us since the 1830s, when Sir Titus Salt, a Bradford-based industrialist, began importing alpaca fibre and keeping a few animals of his own.

Interest in alpacas revived in this country in the mid Nineties and the national herd now numbers around 20,000. Most are kept as pets, as a source of fine wool or to breed for competitive showing.

But if you're tempted to trade in your cat or dog, be warned: the back garden won't be large enough. Alpacas need a suitable area of fenced, secure ground, a constant supply of fresh water and adequate shelter. Oh, and they come with an elegant price tag, starting at £4,000.

O'Conor says they are a fascinating challenge for breeders. "In no time at all you can take a basic alpaca with a coarse fleece and, through careful breeding and selection, produce show-class progeny."

Alpacas are bred in the summer and it so happens that I arrive on mating day. After seeing the herd ruminating reflectively in the fields, it's a shock to be shown into a large shed divided into cattle pens where dozens are procreating in a frenzy of alpaca amour.

The females usually give birth between dawn and mid-afternoon. One is calmly producing as we drive past the main field, the calf's head just visible beneath Mother Alpaca's flicking tail.

It would have been a thrilling sight for any passing coachload of pensioners or, indeed, for one regular visitor who doesn't share his wife's love of opera, preferring instead to drop her at Glyndebourne before spending the afternoon alpaca-watching.

"We seem to have become an alternative attraction for non-opera goers," says O'Conor.

www.atacamaalpacas.co.uk; 0780 1109 243.

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