Great Tew

Great Tew is one of the most celebrated estate villages in England — a place of thatched ironstone cottages arranged along a village street with a studied informality that is entirely intentional. The village was remodelled in the early nineteenth century by the landscape designer John Claudius Loudon, who was commissioned to create picturesque cottage gardens and arrange the buildings to appear as though they had grown organically from the landscape. The result is one of the most aesthetically coherent villages in Oxfordshire.

The ironstone used throughout Great Tew gives it a distinctly different character from the limestone villages of the Cotswolds proper to the west — the warm golden-brown stone, combined with thatch and cottage gardens, creates an effect that is closer to a painter's ideal of the English village than almost anywhere else. The Church of St Michael, partly medieval and partly Victorian restoration, stands at the end of the village street.

The Falkland Arms pub is one of the most celebrated country pubs in this corner of England, known for its cask ales, antique jugs hanging from ancient beams, and its commitment to traditional pub life. Great Tew lies within easy reach of Chipping Norton, Woodstock and the Blenheim Palace estate, making it a natural stopping point on any tour of the north Oxfordshire Cotswolds.