COURTYARD HOUSE:
OUR COTTAGE FOR RENT
IN THE NORTH COTSWOLDS OF ENGLAND

The House

Courtyard House is situated within the heart of Blockley Village, just off High Street, so you’re within walking distance of everything the village has to offer, and you have your own parking place in the driveway. The house is over two-hundred years old yet it has the modern amenities of central heating, a brand new bathroom with a modern shower, and a new and well-lit and fully equipped kitchen. The large sitting room has a ten-foot high beamed ceiling and a dining and sitting area within it furnished with antique pine furniture.

Two steps down from the dining area is a separate sitting area with an upholstered sofa and chairs gathered around the open fireplace. With that fireplace and central heating, a stay during the winter is a wholly comfortable experience upstairs and down. French doors and big windows look out into the 15’ x 35’ garden we’ve just redesigned and furnished for outdoor sitting, eating and admiring the perennials and shrubs that comprise the garden. From the new dining area in the garden, you have a view of the 600 year old church tower and the church itself. Every hour and half hour you can hear the bells from the clock on the Parish Church just across Bell Lane.

The two bedrooms upstairs (one with twin beds, the other with a double) have 16’ sloped beamed ceilings, each with its own bath. From the upstairs windows you look out onto the tiled rooftops of Blockley.

Blockley Village

The houses are built on a series of terraces that step down the east facing slope of a hillside to the stream at the bottom. This terracing lends an ever so slightly European flair to the place, as little alleyways and steps disappear between closely knit houses.

Blockley has a long and rich history. Its earliest inhabitants can be traced back the Romans in 45A.D. The first reference to the village name appeared in a charter from 855 A.D. wherein Burgred, the Mercian king, bequeathed the “minster which is called Bloccanleeh to his faithful bishop and friend Ealhun.”

At the other end of the village from Courtyard House, High Street ends as a footpath into the woods, so through-traffic is routed around the village center. It’s very quiet. And it’s a living village, not overrun with antique and gift shops. There's The Grocery and Post Office, the Crown Inn Pub and a new gourmet food shop that just opened across the street from the cottage. They sell fine cheeses from across Europe, coffees, wines and other gourmet foods and as well as fabulous breakfast pastries.

The Cotswolds

Of course, we’re prejudiced, but we think the North Cotswolds is the most beautiful part of England. Somebody must agree because the whole area, including Blockley, was designated an Area of Outstanding Beauty a few years ago. The homes and buildings are made of honey-colored Cotswold stone, a lot of them with thatched roofs. Neighboring villages have names like Upper Swell and Lower Slaughter, Stow-On-The-Wold, Bibury and Broadway, Temple Guiting, Burford and Snowshill.

Villages and hamlets gather in the folds of hills surrounded by checkerboard fields of wheat and barley, oats and Brussels sprouts. And of course there are sheep, the basis of the area’s wealth from the wool markets in the Middle Ages.

It’s also centrally located for all sorts of wonderful attractions: public gardens, antique and fine shops, The Royal Shakespeare Theater, horse racing and golf, and, of course, walking on The Cotswold Way or The Heart of England Way which literally goes by the cottage.

These well-known places are a short distance from Courtyard House:

10 minute drive to Stow-On-The-Wold, Broadway, Chipping Campden, Moreton-In-Marsh

30 minute drive to Stratford-On-Avon, Banbury, Cirencester, Cheltenham, Oxford

60 minute drive to Bath, Wells, Bristol

90 minutes by Turbo-train from Moreton-In-Marsh to Paddington Station, London

2 hour drive by car from Heathrow

Gardens to visit in the immediate area:

• Hidcote Manor Gardens,
• Kiftsgate Court,
• Bourton House,
• Snowshill Manor,
• Sezincote,
• Whichford Pottery

Rental information:

Courtyard House is available to rent by the week from Friday to Friday throughout the year, including the Christmas/New Year period. From November until mid-March, it’s also available for short breaks of three to six days.

For rental rates and availability, contact the Haywards by e-mail or call 1-802-387-4766 or fax 1-802-387-4267.