Cotswolds cousin

THE VILLAGES of north Oxfordshire are probably best known for staging the annual Cropredy Festival, where music fans of a certain age gather in a field to listen to Seventies rock veterans such as Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. But this slice of Middle England, between the book-end towns of Bicester and Banbury, is buzzing, prosperous, has good schools and , crucially, offers significantly more in terms of property for your money than the neighbouring Cotswolds.

William Harries, a partner at The Buying Solution, a relocation company acting for house hunters, says: “Prices close to the M40 are at least 10-15 per cent below those in the chocolate-box villages further west and that’s down largely to tradition. The area doesn’t have the social cachet of the Cotswolds nor does it have the lovely stone buildings. Yet it’ s a good place to live and is also very beautiful in its own way.”

Harries could have added that north Oxfordshire residents do not have to navigate around ice cream-licking daytrippers blocking their high streets. Nor are they cornered by tabloid journalists and celebrity stalkers asking if Kate Winslet, Jilly Cooper or Kate Moss has been seen recently.

This is a proper place, not a picture-postcard fantasy of England. It is an area of sturdy towns and villages such as Milton, Williamscot and Adderbury, built from lovely, dark-flecked Hornton stone, where people commute to jobs mostly up the M40 to Birmingham and the Midlands, or by train to London.

In terms of property prices, it pays to shop around because the market is riddled with idiosyncrasies. A small cottage will cost about £220,000 and a decent-sized three-bedroom one with a garden at least £340,000. But there are interesting one-offs, such as an impressive looking two-bedroom, top-floor apartment that the estate agent Hayward White is selling for

£195,000 leasehold. It is also worth checking out Aynho, on the fringes of the region, where prices are a rung lower — ostensibly because of traffic noise from the M40. A townie would be hard pressed to notice it.

Barns with planning permission for conversion are without doubt the most sought-after properties because there are very few left in the Cotswolds, George Philip, at Lane Fox in Banbury, says: “We recently had one for sale with 50 acres and it flew out of the door.”

You will find a younger cross-section living in north Oxfordshire than in the more expensive parts of Gloucestershire. It is a community that Paul Eagles, 60, researched thoroughly before opening a delicatessen in Deddington

18 months ago.

“There is a good mix of locals and incomers,” he says. “The people who live here like the better things in life, which is why there are so many pubs and restaurants. It is also a community where a lot of people travel a fair distance to work and do not have time to cook, which explains why I opened up here.” George Philip adds: “These are living communities. They are not deserted in the week by weekenders and second-home owners, as are many Cotswolds villages. Some, such as Deddington, have every amenity you would need on a daily basis so you could, theoretically, live without a car. That cannot be said of many places nowadays.”

Indeed, Deddington, with its bustling village square, and Bloxham, with its excellent comprehensive school, are favourites with commuters. The villages of Charlton-on-Otmoor and Barford St Michael have popular pubs, Warmington is very pretty and Wroxton has olde-worlde village charm, including thatched cottages and a duck pond.

Newcomers find sufficient entertainment in the area. Tony Ecclestone, 45, who sold his two-bedroom terraced house in Bromley, southeast London, for £116,000 in 1999 and bought a three-bedroom, semi-detached property in Barford St Michael for about £190,000, says: “I’m into acoustic music and I can get to a pub gig just as quickly as I could when I lived in London. For the theatre, Oxford is only 45 minutes away by car and last week it took me just half an hour to drive to Stratford-upon-Avon to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform.”

There is a less rustic feel to the towns of Bicester and Banbury. Bicester still has leftovers of 16th-century gabled houses around its market square but from there modern estates sprawl into the outskirts, where there is also a popular designer outlet village. The going price for a three-bedroom semi on one of the estates is £180,000 and a detached house costs £270,000. It is a 62-minute train ride to Marylebone.

Banbury, to the west, also has large housing estates and business parks on its fringes but the centre of town is being given a makeover. Apartments are being built near the canal lock, where there is a wonderful arts centre, which ran a pirate school for the yummy mummies and their young crew a few weeks ago.

Bryant Homes is selling three-bedroom semis at Hanwell Fields for £189,950. The town also has a fair amount of late-Victorian and early-Edwardian housing stock and you will find a good, three-bedroom older property for £270,000-plus.

North Oxfordshire has its faults — Banbury and Bicester, for example, can be fairly raucous on a Saturday night. And you do not have the gorgeous Cotswold views: the sudden glimpse of a silver-misted hill town on an autumn morning, for example.

The countryside has blemishes. A caravan site, scrapyard or go-kart track may blot the farmland, but these are the imperfections of real people living in real places. And that is also the attraction of north Oxfordshire.

www.haywardwhite.co.uk 01295 275885
www.bryant.co.uk 01635 275400