Hornets are rare in Britain?

While enjoying lunch in the garden recently, before the wave of wet weather set in again in Wiltshire, I was distracted by a large wasp on a nearby plant. This turned out to be a hornet. Further investigation revealed hornets coming and going from a nest in our neighbour's roof space.

I'm not sure whether to be pleased that we have rare insects in our garden (to complement an impressive variety of butterfly species this year), or look forward to our neighbour having the nest destroyed before the wasps become overly pervasive later in the year.