Britain’s most scenic drives: A meander through the North Cotswolds

If you're looking for Britain's most scene drives, it’s hard to go wrong in an idyllic AONB where honey-coloured stone enhances rolling hills wherever you turn.

Chipping Campden’s ‘most perfect high street in England’ is a good place to start; perhaps follow the Cotswold Way towards Willersey and Broadway, stopping at Broadway Tower for a glimpse of 16 counties, before humming down the A44 to Moreton-in-Marsh at the crossroads of Roman Fosse Way or forking south to Stow-on-the-Wold, the Slaughters with their sweet footbridges on the Eye, and Bourton-on-the-Water, known for straddling the Windrush and its museum’s vintage cars.

The little lanes through sheep-speckled fields here are in no hurry, but creep lazily south to Northleach and Cirencester, or east via Daylesford to join the A44 and Chipping Norton, home to a very good literary festival, plus bucolic-chic Soho Farmhouse.

This is mellow land and drivers should go where the breeze takes them — there’s usually a good pub lunch to be had along the way; the 16th-century The King’s Head Inn at Bledington, for example, or The Swan at Ascott-under-Wychwood, with its whitewashed beams and many bell jars filled with wildflowers.

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