I live in a small village in West Oxfordshire. It is technically on the edge of the Cotswolds, but that would be a distinction which no self-respecting estate agent would allow. The Cotswolds is a designated area of outstanding natural beauty which occupies some 800 square miles of landscape across five counties, so who’s going to quibble if our village, a short distance from the axis of Chipping Norton, is included in its general purview?
Not me, certainly. I have no intention of selling my house, but it’s difficult not to feel a tiny sense of smug satisfaction on reading that property prices in the Cotswolds have risen 56 per cent since 2014 (just before I bought here, incidentally) and this is twice the increase recorded in London house prices over the past decade.
We can put the area’s increasing popularity down to the three Cs: Countryside, Celebrity and Clarkson. The rolling hills, the radiant yellow fields of oilseed rape, the hedgerows teeming with cow parsley, the stone cottages, the chocolate box villages, the kites wheeling and whistling plaintively in the sky above: these are the sights and sounds that make this such an attractive part of the world to visit, and live.
But this is no longer just an everyday, rural idyll. The advent of Soho Farmhouse in 2015 brought a new constituency to the Cotswolds – those who like the idea of simple pastoral pleasures, but also want to know they can get a tuna tataki or some reflexology should they so wish. The lure of Soho House attracted a celebrity audience, some of whom have bought their own piece of this corner of England. David Beckham, Simon Cowell and Ellen deGeneres, for instance, all have houses within a short bike ride of my own.
square JEREMY CLARKSON Jeremy Clarkson never cried. Then his piglet died
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And then there is the Jeremy Clarkson effect. Our local farmer, shopkeeper, publican and TV personality has, in his series Clarkson’s Farm, done more than anyone to explain the problems facing the UK’s farming industry to a general audience, but he has also burnished the credentials of the Cotswolds as a celebrity spotter’s theme park. You can be among the thousands who go to Clarkson’s shop, or have a pint in his pub, and, who knows, you might even be lucky enough to meet the great man himself. Or Posh and Becks, maybe.
However, it is another, more recent, phenomenon which is continuing to drive property prices upwards, and is somewhat altering the social fabric of the area. As Dubai is becoming a new home for Brits disenchanted with the political settlement and – particularly – the tax regime here, so the Cotswolds is a popular location for Americans fleeing what they see as the ravages of the Donald Trump presidency.
Applications for UK citizenship from Americans hit a new high last year, at 6,100. This represented a 26 per cent increase from 2023, and a sizeable proportion of them have, according to local estate agents, migrated to the Cotswolds, for its natural beauty, its schools and, of course, its tinge of glamour. They bring with them their taste for the finer things in life; I remember a day when the height of dining out here meant a microwaved steak and kidney pie, and now we have a host of excellent gastropubs in the county.
I know that the increase in outsiders settling in the Cotswolds may not be an unreservedly positive thing for community cohesion, but my experience is that it’s they who throw themselves into local activities. Our church is run by people who bought here around the same time as I did, and the local pub quiz, raising funds for the village magazine, is populated by non-indigenous inhabitants wanting to share in a communal purpose.
I was born in Manchester, and I have spent most of my working life in London. So I am not a natural countryside dweller. But I love the Cotswolds, even its “edges”, and regard it as my adopted home. I realise how fortunate I am. And I’m happy that others, wherever they come from, and for whatever reason they have, find it equally alluring. In truth, I couldn’t really care less what my house is worth. Welcome one, welcome all, I say.
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