What Defender 90 do you have? Mine's a 300Tdi.
On mine, this is the thermostat in it's housing at the front of the engine.
This is my stat, which was stuck open. You can see the gap
It doesn't take much of a gap to allow the water to flood through to the radiator, the water is then being continuously cooled. So, temp gauge doesn't go up until you are burning a lot of fuel, fast, for a long time. It's an easy job to change. Get the tools out, swap new one in, put tools away = 20 mins.