Waterside

Castle Combe needs no introduction: a single street of honey-coloured Cotswold stone descending to a packhorse bridge and the By Brook, regularly named the prettiest village in England. Waterside stands at the very foot of it, a double-fronted cottage commanding the most photographed view in the village, its front windows looking straight across the water. Grade II listed and carrying a timber beam dated to 1468, the house began life as a weaver's dwelling, the bobbin hooks are still in the beams, and has been carefully maintained through the centuries since.

Inside, the rooms unfold across three floors and nearly fifteen hundred square feet. A reception room gathers around a generous inglenook fireplace with a wood-burning stove; the country-style fitted kitchen, with its integrated appliances, opens to a dining area with stone flagging underfoot. Four bedrooms, three with their own en-suite or shower room, occupy the upper floors, the principal suite tucked beneath the roof on the top floor with views across the village rooftops. Bay windows, exposed beams and deep stone reveals give every room the character you would expect from a house of this age.

Step outside and the garden rises behind the cottage in a series of private, stone-walled terraces: a courtyard for morning coffee, a lower lawn fringed with mature planting and three stone-built stores. A garage sits a minute's walk away. The village is within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with Lacock, Bath and Chippenham all close at hand, and the cottage has a proven track record as a successful holiday let for those drawn to the income as much as the setting. Offered freehold and with no onward chain.