A thatched-roof cottage, a meadow lodge by a chalk stream, an 18th-century Dorset mill… Right now the market is rife with charming properties where you can spend your weekends fishing, hiking or holing up by the inglenook fire. These five homes are located deep in the English countryside and take advantage of the best the landscape has to offer.
Mill house, Gussage All Saints, Dorset | £4.5 million
The River Allen runs beneath this Grade II-listed mill house, which dates from the late 18th century. Its gardens and water meadows were redesigned by landscape designer Arabella Lennox-Boyd, and its library was anointed with a RIBA award. Crawshaw Architects designed it in curved oak out of a former cattle shed on the property, fitting bookshelves between frames that recall the stalls once found here. The project won RIBA South West & Wessex Regional Small Project of the Year in 2022.
Lord Snowdon’s country retreat, Staplefield, West Sussex | £3.95 million
Dating to 1481, Old House was given to photographer and designer Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon, by his uncle, the stage designer Oliver Messel. Peter Sellers, Margot Fonteyn, Bianca Jagger and Issey Miyake were among its visitors. Snowdon made his own changes too, adding bow windows and skylights and turning his photographic darkroom into a library. One upstairs bathroom remains covered with photographs, newspaper cuttings and personal mementos from his time here.
Sienna Miller’s thatched cottage, Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire | £1.75 million
Flint, brick and timber sit beneath the deep thatched roof of this house, purchased by actress Sienna Miller in 2008. Called Thatch, the Grade II-listed cottage still has its original exposed beams, timber floorboards and open-hearth fireplaces; Miller enlisted director Gaby Dellal to design around them, and decorated the four bedrooms tucked beneath the thatch. Just over half an acre surrounds the house, with lawns, a pond and a wildflower meadow.
One-bed Cotswolds lodge, Guiting Power, Gloucestershire | £1 million
Barton Meadow Lodge sits beside open meadowland in the Cotswolds village of Guiting Power, with doors from its living spaces opening straight onto the grass. Antique dealer Christopher Howe worked on the interiors, pairing old furniture and textiles with Plain English kitchen cabinetry and lime-washed timber. Even the newly laid oak floor was deliberately walked over during construction to take away its newness.
A 17th-century fisherman’s cottage, Dittisham, Devon | £1.5 million
Smugglers Cottage was built in the late 17th century as a coal store and fisherman’s retreat on the River Dart. Hand-hewn oak beams, exposed stone walls, flagstone floors and inglenook fireplaces remain throughout the Grade II-listed house, while all four bedrooms look across the river. A paved terrace at the front leads directly to the beach at low tide, with a two-storey boathouse standing beside the house.
