It’s no secret that there are loads of stunning places in the UK. Some of them are natural, like Cornwall’s sandy beaches or the Scottish Highlands, and some of them are manmade. England is jam packed full of cute little towns you might never have even heard of which look straight out of a Christmas card – but which is the most beautiful?
That may be a hotly contested title, but holiday home provider Independent Cottages has decided to name a winner. The site hasn’t just picked a favourite either – it’s done some proper research.
To create a complete list of the most gorgeous villages, the Independent Cottages rated loads of towns on five key criteria: the number of historic buildings; the estimated age of the town; whether is it within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; how many people search for it online; and how many TikTok posts feature its streets. Once they had all that information, they were able to compile a ranking and crown a winner.
After all of that, the top rated village was… Bourton-on-the-Water in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds! This place is seriously old. However old you’re thinking, times it by 10, and then a few; it’s estimated that people have been living in Bourton since 4000BC. It’s the oldest on the list by 700 years, and also leads the pack with 388 listed buildings. A couple of years ago Rough Guides named it the nation’s most romantic place, so it’s not surprising to see it topping this list.
Independent Cottages noted its ‘honey-coloured Cotswolds stone buildings’ which ‘line the water’ and said that ‘medieval churches and Georgian houses aside, being in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty means Bourton-on-the-Water’s surrounding countryside is also something to marvel at’. Be careful though – Bourton gets very busy with tourists taking in its picturesque streets during the summer.
In second place was Castle Combe in Wiltshire, yet another stunning Cotswolds landmark. As Independent Cottages admits, it is ‘tiny, just one main street’, but that doesn’t stop it from being the perfect place to stroll through when you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Independent Cottages especially loves ‘how untouched it feels’, saying that ‘it’s a village that looks almost exactly as it did centuries ago’.
Rounding out the top three was Clovelly, Devon. This is the first seaside town to make the list, so ‘the white-painted cottages with their flower gardens cascade down the 400-foot cliff’. With views like that, it’s no surprise that it’s taken the bronze.
You can read Independent Cottages full list of the most gorgeous villages in England on the website here.
Planning your staycations
If you’re still hoping on the hunt for a perfect summer getaway but don’t fancy any of the chocolate box villages mentioned here, here’s our favourite places in the UK to visit. But you deserve to have fun too – here’s some tree houses you can rent out for something a little different. We’ve also got guides to the country’s cosiest cabins, and Britain's most underrated travel destinations.
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