A charming thatched cottage with wonderful interiors in a lovely Oxfordshire village — and it's within walking distance of three pubs
The aptly named Thatched Cottage is an excellent example of thatched period charm with plenty of style and character in a sought-after village.


With three excellent pubs within walking distance—The Feathered Nest in Nether Westcote, The King’s Head in Bledington and The Hare in Milton-under-Wychwood—early-17th-century The Thatched Cottage needn’t be so pretty, but it is.
And it's currently on the market via Butler Sherborn for offers in excess of £1.1 million.
Little casement windows peep through rough coursed limestone walls, shining light on three beautifully kept bedrooms and two reception rooms, with charmingly higgledy-piggledy exposed timber, a window seat, wooden shutters and a sun room.
In lovely Idbury village, the centre point between Stow-on-the-Wold, Bourton-on-the Water and Burford, it’s Grade II listed with an enclosed garden of lawns, mature shrubs, beds and south-facing terraces.
Planning permission to extend has now lapsed, but could be revived.
The Thatched Cottage is currently on the market via Butler Sherborn for offers in excess of £1.1 million — see more pictures, or enquire with the agent for further details.
Idbury: What you need to know
Location: Equidistance between Stow-on-the-Wold, Bourton on the Water and Burford. Rail services are available from Kingham with links to London Paddington.
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Atmosphere: The charming village is a highly desirable area to live thanks to its easy commuter links, beautiful setting within the Cotswolds AONB and access to a wide range of shops and facilities, plus three local and excellent pubs all within walking (or stumbling) distance. The renowned Daylesford farm shop is also a short distance away.
Things to do: Sporting facilities are highly regarded in the area, including the Cheltenham Racecourses, numerous golf courses plus wonderful walking routes. Pubs are a-plenty, and the surrounding larger villages and towns all provide shopping facilities.
Schools: Bledington Primary School and The Rissington School are both rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted and further secondary education can be found at Burford School, Headington School and Chipping Norton School.
See more property for sale in the area.
Credit: Strutt and Parker
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Annunciata grew up in the wilds of Lancashire and now lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and an awful pug called Parsley. She’s been floating round the Country Life office for more than a decade, her work winning the Property Magazine of the Year Award in 2022 (Property Press Awards). Before that, she had a two-year stint writing ‘all kinds of fiction’ for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, worked in internal comms for Country Life’s publisher (which has had many names in recent years but was then called IPC Media), and spent another year researching for a historical biographer, whose then primary focus was Graham Greene and John Henry Newman and whose filing system was a collection of wardrobes and chests of drawers filled with torn scraps of paper. During this time, she regularly gave tours of 17th-century Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, which may or may not have been designed by Inigo Jones, and co-founded a literary, art and music festival, at which Johnny Flynn headlined. When not writing and editing for Country Life, Annunciata is also a director of TIN MAN ART, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by her husband, James Elwes.
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