Roundtown Cottage

Aynho (Aienho in medieval times) is easy to fall for: a wide main street of golden ironstone, apricot trees trained against the garden walls, and a sense of ease that comes from centuries of quiet prosperity. By the 17th century it was thriving, and it was then that Richard Cartwright purchased Aynho Park and established a dynasty lasting three hundred years, creating the beautiful deer park that still surrounds the village today. The house stands on Roundtown, a lane curving past the church, in a row of stone cottages barely changed since the Middle Ages. This one is nearly six hundred years old, Grade II* listed, and was at some point the village bakery: the bread oven is still there.

The bread oven is the sort of detail that sets a house like this apart. The rest lives up to it: exposed chamfered beams in the living and dining rooms, flagstone floors throughout, and deep stone walls that keep the rooms cool in summer and warm in winter. The vaulted master bedroom has its own en-suite bathroom; two further bedrooms and a ground-floor shower room complete the accommodation. In all, the cottage runs to over 1,300 square feet, which is generous for a building of this age, and a stone outbuilding with mains power adds further useful space.

Outside, the garden has been beautifully landscaped around a central piece of original well, with mature planting on all sides giving a good sense of privacy for the heart of a village. Aynho itself is well served: the Cartwright Arms is on the doorstep, the market towns of Banbury and Brackley are a short drive, and the M40 gives easy access to both Oxford and London. Offered freehold, with no onward chain.