The cottage sits in the pretty village of Willersey, with the duck pond at its centre. Two pubs and two churches are close by, and several public footpaths, including the Cotswold Way, provide scenic routes to neighbouring villages and beyond.
The iconic village of Broadway is 1.5 miles away by road or foot, with its broad street lined with fine buildings housing shops, galleries, tea shops and restaurants, overlooked by Broadway Tower high on the Cotswold scarp. Built by the Earl of Coventry, the Tower counted the Arts & Crafts master William Morris, and many others, among its guests and was the site of a wartime enemy aircraft lookout post and Cold War nuclear bunker.
If you wish to explore the area a little more there are several upland Cotswold towns, including ancient Stow-on-the-Wold, site of Civil War strife and the highest town in the Cotswolds, Bourton-on-the-Water, Venice of the Cotswolds where the River Windrush is clear enough to see the trout grazing on the bottom, and Chipping Campden with its wool church and 17C market hall.
Or why not explore the smaller Cotswold villages such as Lower Slaughter, used as a location for Autumn de Wilde’s Emma, or Blockley used as one of the many local locations for the detective series Father Brown.
The nearest town to the cottage is Evesham, about 6 miles away. Once a medieval ecclesiastical powerhouse and the site of the decisive battle in 1265, more recent fortunes were founded on the market gardening boom of the 19C. Some fine architecture remains, including the early 16C free-standing Bell Tower, and the River Avon, once the town’s defence, provides pleasant recreation.
The Vale of Evesham, famous for its Blossom Trail in Spring, has lovely villages like Bretforton, Badsey and Little Comberton, and Pershore is another market town on the Avon with its Abbey and August Bank Holiday weekend Plum Festival.
The two larger towns of Stratford-on-Avon and Cheltenham Spa are about 15 miles from the cottage, in different directions. Cheltenham, Regency spa town and birthplace of composer Gustav Holst, is a good place to shop and its Racecourse has race meetings throughout the year (not just Gold Cup week in March). Stratford-on-Avon, visited by people from all over the world, has 5 houses associated with Shakespeare and his family, including his birthplace, which are open to the public, three permanent professional theatres which stage plays written by Shakespeare and his contemporaries as well as present day playwrights.