The nearby town of Bruton was already beginning to draw artists, musicians and designers as a weekend retreat when Hauser & Wirth opened the showroom, along with holiday rentals and an artists’ residence at Durslade Farmhouse, in 2014.
Soon, Bruton found itself described as the “new Notting Hill” in the pages of British Vogue, no less, with luminaries such as theatre impresario Sir Cameron Mackintosh, fashion designers Alice Temperley and Phoebe Philo, filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson and legendary photographer Don McCullin setting up home there.
Six years on, the picturesque town at the western end of the Cotswolds has become the most searched-for destination for prospective property buyers. Searches for property in the area leapt by 72 per cent this year, according to new data from Rightmove, the UK’s biggest property website.
Bruton? Cotswolds?
No. Blimey, it’s only one over from Shepton Mallet. Lordy be, it’s close to Frome. We might say it’s by Cranbourne Chase, or even the Dorset Downs, but the Cotswolds stop well north, up by Bradford on Avon at the very latest.
I used to live in Shepton Mallet. Yeah, it’s a shithole 🙂
Remarkable how many of the great and good who spend their lives lecturing the unwashed on their environmental crimes insist on living in places a long car drive away, eh?
Bruton sounds like a place to avoid at all costs.
One of the advantages of living near Swindon is such people wouldn’t be seen dead within 10 miles of it……….
@Jim: nonsense. Highworth is very posh 🙂
“Highworth is very posh”
I’m assuming tongue in cheek here!
Highworth (and Faringdon) are those little towns on the edge of the Cotswolds that look really nice and twee at the centre, but a few streets away its more like Beirut. There’s a flat topped pub in Highworth called the Goldfinger (named as Ian Fleming is buried in nearby Sevenhampton church graveyard), you won’t get any gastro meals in there……..
Yes, bollocks article, but they’ve misdiagnosed what is going on here. It ain’t some contemporary art shit that has boosted people moving there.
Bruton has a station with a line to Bristol. Appears to be just over an hour away. And house prices around Bruton seem to be a lot cheaper than Bristol. 3 bed in Wincanton is about £200K. You get to live in a shitty area of Bristol for that.
A commute of say 1’25 to the office? No-one wants to do that every day. But once a fortnight? Once a month? Sure, why not.
If I owned property in London, I would be dumping it and Getting TFO and moving somewhere cheap on a line, like Chippenham.
Looks like the Telegraph been taken over by RyanAir.
BoM4,
Depends how often you’re expected in the office. An acquaintance of mine has just moved to west Oxfordshire, where he can afford a larger house. He plans to commute to London two days a week. Door-to-door it looks like a two hour commute; and will cost £70 each time. Each to their own of course; but I don’t think I’d choose that situation.
Bloke on M4
Chippenham?!?!?
I may, one day, leave my Kensington abode, if only because going up and down five floors seems less attractive as I poddle through my sixties, but it won’t be to Chippenham. Or any other of those godawful Wiltshire towns: Trowbridge, Melksham, Devizes, etc.. They are all terrible festering pits of crime, ugliness and monotony. Maybe we can allow Marlborough.
Better off heading up North. Fast trains – none of that GWR rubbish – and fine countryside and towns: Stamford, Wetherby, Harrogate, Ripon, Market Harborough, etc..
“, but it won’t be to Chippenham. Or any other of those godawful Wiltshire towns: Trowbridge, Melksham, Devizes, etc.. They are all terrible festering pits of crime, ugliness and monotony. ”
Yes, true, but a distinct lack of up themselves Lefty arty types, or cunts like David Cameron………..
“…..the picturesque town at the western end of the Cotswolds……”
Oh, those estate agents and their artistic licence. When living in London, I can recall Clapham being pronounced Clarm, and Streatham as St Reatham. To paraphrase Will, “A shithole by any other name is still a shithole”.
Andrew M,
“Depends how often you’re expected in the office. An acquaintance of mine has just moved to west Oxfordshire, where he can afford a larger house. He plans to commute to London two days a week. Door-to-door it looks like a two hour commute; and will cost £70 each time. Each to their own of course; but I don’t think I’d choose that situation.”
Yeah, that seems a bit far. Because I work for all sorts of people, I’ve learned by trial and error how much I can do. But if you work in the city, somewhere like Reading is just over an hour, 2 days a week. There’s also questions about whether we even have this thing of cities and rail like we do. If we can do so much office stuff remotely, with occasional face-to-face, why spend money on London?
Recusant,
Crime? Ugliness? I’m pretty sure that even Kensington has a higher crime rate than any of them. Ugliness? I’ll grant you that Kensington is the one of the few pleasant places in the general toilet that is London, but I think Chippenham is no less attractive. Or live a few miles away in Corsham which is more pleasant.
What is anyone paying for in London, if you don’t have to work there? You get the same arthouse cinema and fancy food in Bath. OK, the opera isn’t as good, but how often do most people go?
But the underclass there are so, well, Prussian blue.
If you like the opera take a flight to Berlin and enjoy the humungous subsidy.
But when will the world of cheap flights return?
Got a taxi a few weeks ago, from Templecombe to Shepton Mallet[*]. “It’s a bit out in the sticks here” said the driver who was from Gillingham (Dorset). Not that he was that keen on urban life either: “I lived in Cheltenham for two years, that was enough of the big city for me” said he.
[*] If a hospital appointment is unavoidable Shepton Mallet is far better than Yeovil
PS. Bruton has a posh(ish) school, it was pretty des res even before Hauser&Wirth and the Newt
Reading that list I am reminded of a1970’s Private Eye quote:-
“Celebrities present included snooker player Jeff Brownale and actress Sonia Thargs, zany comedian Kenny Gluenose and toast of the northern clubs Ron Butty”.
(Sid and Doris Bonkers were probably in the audience).
It’s Shepton Mallé these days you oafs – not Sheppunmallit.
It would be fun if the Bruton property boom involved the legendary local estate agent Julian Bending
My favourite was “remote tiny cottage, little natural light, small windows, serious damp problems – would suit a witch”
That said Bradford on Avon is stuffed with M25 zone refugees who’ve cashed in and are indulging in predictable antics – other towns seeing similar (OK… maybe not Trowbridge)
… links not a thing here at the moment?
http://jamestrollope.co.uk/carryonupthemendips.html
“three-bedroom former school house with everything except the randy old teacher and fag butts down the loo”.
https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Agent-banned-over-adverts-finds-acceptance
Journos can’t do geography. Nor maths. Nor science. Perhaps it would be easier to try to find something they can do.
Nah. That doesn’t work, either.