The gnomes are back – and there is nothing blue or tacky about them.
The new gnomes have been put back by China Blue boss Vernon Gay, who has been sponsoring the roundabout for the last six years.
So far there are just four of them on their gnome away from gnomes roundabout peering out of the vegetation.
Mr Gay said: “They have been on a bit of a gnome sabbatical looking for a new roundabout and now they are back. It seems this was the best roundabout they could find.”
Mr Gay, who runs the popular China Blue business just a few yards away from the busy roundabout, originally paid some £5,000 to give the roundabout a facelift and still pumps around £1,000 a year into looking after it.
When the original large blue gnomes appeared, it caused a major row as people claimed they were “tacky”, turned the town into a Westcountry Disneyland and made Totnes a laughing stock.
Mr Gay finally cleared the blue gnomes off the roundabout in November 2016 after they had been attacked by vandals and some stolen.
“The blue gnomes were there for five years but they just kept getting beaten up,” said Mr Gay.
“Then there were the ones that went walkabout and the police kept bringing back. In the end, they were so damaged that I took them away.”
He said it had been decided not to make the new ones blue.
“We decided that after all the controversy over the other ones we would go for the natural look. They blend into the roundabout and don’t stand out too much. So far they have been doing really well,” he added.
He said that the only comments he had had so far was from a party of people at the business’s Blue 55 restaurant who had said they were “really pleased” that the gnomes had returned.