Compromise county James Leith
Until 1994 we lived in Surrey. 'Surrey's not a county,' an Eton beak pointed out to my son, 'If s a suburb!' So, a writer-wife with no ties to London and a house-husband (me) and two prep-school-age children moved away from Dorking (30 minutes from London) to seek out the Cotswold dream — honey-coloured stone, rolling hills and a farmhouse close to my sister's Gloucestershire pile near Stow. Ha!
Not only are those picturesque hilltops in the teeth of the winter wind and freezing cold as a result, but you pay £50,000 for the view and the place is an educational black hole, the options being Oxford, Stratford or Cheltenham for day-school education and a round trip for your eightyear-old of about three hours.
'What you're looking for,' our weary house-hunter finally said, is a £500,000 farmhouse set in its own land in the Cotswolds for £350,000, right? I'm good, but not that good. Have you thought of north Wiltshire?'
'He means Swindon,' my wife declared. 'Tell him no.'
It turned out he meant a Cotswold stone farmhouse (complete with Aga) in a shallow valley in north Wiltshire, close enough to Cirencester to be mistaken for Gloucestershire by townies who don't hunt with the Beaufort, and close to at least two good prep schools.
The farm had been occupied by the same family for three generations, and the last tenant farmer had died, aged 90, after two nights in Tetbuty hospital. These were the only two nights he'd ever spent out of the house. A good vibe, we thought. We could afford it and didn't need to do anything decorative to it for five years. We spent every evening standing in the garden listening to nothing at all, which made a delightful change from the A24 dual carriageway and the Gatwick to Heathrow helicopter shuttle.
Then the wife got herself a full-time job and had to commute daily from Kemble to Paddington. It's not 30 minutes, but it is Intercity, and until recently the cost of being transported 115 miles in under an hour and a half was at least within the bounds of reason. Lately, First Great Western have identified Kemble as being in Gloucestershire, have looked at Gloucestershire house prices and figured Out that commuters who can pay that much for a house can pay 66 quid a day to commute to their trading desks. It's a bit tougher on writers, house-husbands and part-time hacks who actually live in Wiltshire, specifically in the north Wiltshire triangle formed by Swindon, Malmesbury and Cirencester.
Sam Trounson, of the estate agents Lane Fox in Cirencester, points out that every housebuyer makes some sort of compromise, and those who find themselves having to trade down can find the same house in Wiltshire for anything up to 20 per cent cheaper than in the Cotswolds proper.
Gloucestershire has estates, while Wiltshire has what remains of dairy farms. Fields in Gloucestershire (merchant bankers' daughters' ponies for the use of) are perched on hills of freedraining soil. In Wiltshire they are lowlying, claggy and frequently flooded. Gloucestershire has Cheltenham and Cirencester, north Wiltshire has Swindon and Chippenham. Wiltshire is Wiltshire, Gloucestershire is Royal Gloucestershire, and a GL postcode trumps an SN postcode every time. If you're concussed while out hunting and want to know which county you fell off in, look at the fencing. If it's pristine post and rail, it's Gloucestershire; if it's barbed wire and baling twine, it's Wiltshire.
I was nursing a theory about the Reynard Index of House Prices. This states that ten acres plus farmhouse in Beaufort country is £1 million; in Vale of White Horse country it's £800,000. But Sam pointed out that the Coln Valley was VVVH and home to more squillionaires per square mile than anywhere this side of St George's Hill. It is, of course, in Gloucestershire. North Wiltshire may be cheaper, but it sure ain't cheap. A derelict cottage with dodgy access goes for £350,000 and a perfectly ordinary barn conversion with a bit of land for £750,000. Some agents will tell the vendors £795,000, but that's not because they're going to get it, it's so that the agents get the instruction. They'll put you in touch with reality later.
Some time ago, 60 per cent of building plots went to developers. Now 90 per cent go to individuals and the remaining 10 per cent to individuals-turned-developers. Buy a barn, do it up, sell it and trade up, each time, avoiding COT because it's your only house. Several of these individual developers made so much loot and got so tired of life in a building-site caravan that they have gone purely commercial and pay the tax. Remortgage your manor house, buy a clutch of three derelict barns for £450,000, spend £450,000 doing them up into three threeor four-bedroom conversions and get £450,000 for each of them. Then pay the tax, what the hell! As one former estate agent pointed out, it beats working. It will come as no surprise to learn that these deals are not all that readily available these days.
Inter-county comparisons are not all odious or anti-Wiltshire. While some north Wiltshire villages are nightmares of ribbon development and recon stone infill, others are simply stunning, and the very occasional north Wiltshire hillside may boast a house with a Cotswold-type view. These immediately attract Cotswoldtype prices.
Gloucestershire isn't quite all Cotswold charm and roistering with the Royals, either. It has Gloucester, of course, home of the shellsuit, Fred West and too many people who bear uncanny facial resemblances to their spouses. It also has Stroud, which is not where the discerning Cotswold incomer would want to do a weekly shop. While if you've something more than £10 million to spend on your rural retreat, and you can persuade Michael Green to deal, Easton Grey has the prettiest manor house in England, and it's in Wiltshire.
North Wiltshire/south Gloucestershire residents also get some of the finest country house hotels, spas and gastropubs in the country. So when your townie friends come down for the weekend you may be able to persuade them how much better off they'd be checking into Barnsley House (£260—£450 a night, Gloucestershire) or Whatley Manor (£275—£850 a night, Wiltshire). Then they could take you to the Trouble House (Gloucestershire) for the best pub-dining in England.
In fact, don't buy a house down here at all. For the price of a standard four-bedroom barn conversion in north Wiltshire with a couple of acres, you could spend every summer weekend for 82 years in the Cotswolds proper and dine at the Trouble House every night. And you wouldn't have to top the paddock, clean the house, cook or make the beds.
Previous page
