Castle Combe, Englands Prettiest Village?
Castle Combe is a quintessentially English village often named as the ‘prettiest village in England.’It is rightfully an ‘Instagram famous’, due to its undeniable photogenic vista of stone cottages, sweeping over a babbling brook, with no modern blights to snap you out of your old world fantasy. The village sits in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in north west Wiltshire. A protected landscape famed for it’s beauty. It is less than 2 hours south of London and very near to the equally Instagram Famous UNESCO World Heritage city of Bath.
Castle Combe has featured regularly as a film location, most recently in The Wolf Man, Stardust and Stephen Spielberg’s War Horse. It was also used in the original Dr Doolittle film.
The village has a rich history and the houses are made up of the honey coloured Cotswold stone, typical for a village of this area. House proud owners have really taken the storybook vibes up a notch with their liberal planting of Roses, Wisteria, Lavender and wildflower, climbing up cottages and overflowing from cottage gardens. This place smells as good as it looks!
At the very centre of the village you’ll find a Market Cross and St Andrew’s Church which dates from the 13th century. The church houses a faceless clock which is reputed to be one of the oldest working clocks in the country. Castle Combe amenities a few but perfectly adequate. There is a free public car park, public lavatories, 2 delightful pubs and a rather grand manor house hotel. If you’re feeling peckish, but not quiet ready for a traditional pub lunch you may be lucky enough have the opportunity to purchase homemade cakes, sweets or bunches of flowers from little honesty box stalls outside the locals’ houses. Homemade goodies are often displayed for sale on little gingham linen topped tables by cottage doorsteps, simply pop the money through the letterbox when you’ve made your choice!
Don’t forget to take a selfie on the famous bridge at the bottom of the village, with the whole of Castle Combe curving up the hill behind you to remember your day in this magical little corner of the English countryside!
