Plum Sykes’s semi-fictional 'Wives Like Us' — the author's sort of satirical take on life in the Cotswolds — reads like a death knell to normalcy, but there are quiet pockets, free from private members clubs, if only you know where to looks, says Richard MacKichan.
I frequently forget that I almost moved to the Cotswolds once. My dad was tiring of his then daily commute to Oxfordshire and began to ‘explore the options’. As a teenager who found our leafy corner of south-west London tedious enough I was, it’s fair to say, a vocal critic of the idea — though I did concede, when pressed during our weekend village reconnaissance missions, that it was pretty.
The move never materialised but a love/hate relationship with the Cotswolds did, long before that was cool. This all came flooding back to me when I boarded a train at Paddington bound for Moreton-in-Marsh in June just as the Cotswolds discourse was coursing once more.
Estelle Manor: the latest no expense spared private member’s club and spa in the Cotswolds and preferred hangout of the characters in ‘Wives Like Us’.
You won’t need me to rehash it — the crux of the matter is usually, to paraphrase AA Gill, the country being turned into the town — but its latest inflection point was the recent (and feverishly anticipated) publication of Plum Sykes’s Wives Like Us. I could see at least one copy being read in my carriage. Frothy, thinly fictionalised, and witheringly well observed — a Gloucestershire Gatsby, a Palm Royale in Purdey — it writes the ‘Wolds as a gossip-rich one-percenters’ playground, and prompted plenty of confirmatory opinion pieces.
But it certainly didn’t need another one. Summer was spurting to life, my friends and I had found a spare weekend in the diary and craved something more understated, more restful, more (gasp!) real — a getaway that didn’t require status-chasing cosplay, conversations about the Cashmere Caveman, or bumping into countless other London absconders. If recent Cotswolds commentary suggested it was impossible, we were begging to differ.
Now when I say ‘a spare weekend’ I should mention it was Glastonbury weekend which, for us ticketless few, presented a rare vacancy at Wood Farm House (above) in Whichford, a recently spruced five bedroom farmhouse sourced by the sharp-eyed scouts at Sand & Stone Escapes.
Whichford sits just five miles north of Chipping Norton (prime Wives Like Us territory, of course) and a luxury hamper’s toss from Daylesford (though one was more thoughtfully left for us as a welcome), but our weekend began down the road in Broadwell. At the Fox Inn, to be precise, for a midday lunch of prawns and pints and perfectly cooked cod in its sun-dappled garden. This early seating was necessary owing to the weekend’s big event: Broadwell village fete.
The picture-perfect green outside the pub was abuzz. The whole village was out but no one minded us interlopers. Who needs Glasto when you can bet on rubber ducks being raced down a stream and drink Pimms made in someone’s kitchen? We watched some Japanese drumming, we bought some raffle tickets, we basked in the sun on hay bales. It was just what we’d craved; no posing, no power-dressing, no pristine Defender 130s parked up.
After the big draw for the wheelbarrow of wine was announced (not for us, alas) we left to settle into Wood Farm House. Though perfectly private, one of the house’s big charms is that it very much feels part of Whichford. The front gate opens onto the pavement just a minute or so from the village green (no fête on this one) and the Norman Knight pub. At its rear is a well-groomed garden with a centrepiece Ofyr barbecue which we fired up as dusk rolled in.
Inside, the five bedrooms sit across two top floors, including a bunk room nominally for children, but charming enough to tempt grown adults. The warm, inviting, contemporary country interiors courtesy of Millie Turner are cut from boutique hotel cloth. Downstairs, an expansive dining room/lounge fills the glass conservatory extension; the well-equipped adjoining kitchen, unlike the show kitchens of a Sykes protagonist, is very much one to be used.
Best of all is the secret snug, a cosy big-screened viewing/games/napping room easily missed on that excitable first look around. It was here we witnessed that Jude Bellingham injury time overhead kick in the Euros so it may well possess lucky powers too.
The house sleeps 10, and is well sized and suited to celebrations, but there were just four of us and the rest of the weekend slipped by at a gentle pace. A few walks, long lunches, cryptic crossword tutorials from my friend Alice, and zero attempts to sit showily by the Estelle Manor swimming pool.
This was a country weekend as it should be: a chance to put aside city pretensions and get comfortable, a true switch-off. The surroundings, indoor and out, were perfect. We encountered more hedgehogs than Barbour’d Londoners. We’d achieved our goal and my Cotswolds love/hate-ometer had swung resoundingly toward love.
Did we later stop at Soho Farmhouse for brunch and witness countless Glastonbury casualties be, quite literally, airlifted to the spa? I couldn’t possibly comment.
Wood Farm House in Whichford is available on Sand & Stone Escapes from £420 per night or from £1,198 for three-night weekend stays. It sleeps 10, but no pets are allowed.
While you’re there
- Whichford Pottery is the tiny village’s brown-sign attraction. Though tucked away down a lane it’s deceptively large, with a contemporary gallery-cum-shop, a pot-filled yard, exquisite gardens, and a kiln shed that hosts classes
- Most of the current crop of Cotswolds must-visit pubs are within reach, but Broadwell’s Fox Inn is the locals’ choice and couldn’t be more charming. The Straw Kitchen, Whichford Pottery’s café, is perfect for lunch
- Cool down, warm up, and get closer to nature at the Wild Sauna, a wood-fired sauna on the riverbank by Whichford Mill. £65 gets you a one-hour private hire for six people
