The coaches full of American or Chinese tourists come from London to the Cotswolds and head north - to the tearoom traps of Bourton, Bibury and Stow. Those in-the-know who want a lovely Cotswold village or market town with those beautiful honey-coloured cottages head to the South Cotswolds, to Malmesbury, Tetbury and the picture-postcard Castle Combe.
But there’s one village that’s just as lovely as anything on any tourist itinerary, but is one of the Wiltshire Cotswolds’ best-kept secrets - Biddestone.
You’ve probably never heard of it. You might have seen a sign for it when heading to Castle Combe or Corsham. Even if you know it you may well have been pronouncing it wrong anyway.
Read next: The beautiful Cotswolds 'hidden gem' just 40 minutes from Bristol
But Biddestone - pronounced Bid-es-Tun - ticks all the boxes and goes one better, because there’s hardly ever anyone there.
On a lovely Sunday afternoon you might get families on a little day trip out from Chippenham, the pub could well be full of people enjoying a good roast, and in the week you might see the odd Nordic Walking group heading off to tackle the deep V-shaped coombes that scar this western edge of the Cotswold scarp nearby. But apart from that, not much. Which is surprising for somewhere equally as lovely as its more famous neighbours.
Biddestone is a small place - barely 500 people call it home. But its main street - The Green - is lined on either side with sturdy and rather grand Cotswold stone homes, which get smaller as you move away from the epicentre of the village - the large and well-stocked pond.
It’s the kind of place American children will imagine if instructed to draw pictures of an English village - the beautifully simple St Nicholas’ Church, a large whitewashed impossibly old coaching inn, the White Horse, a wide village green with a massive duck pond right in the middle.
The village splits off in three directions from this central green, which is actually a wide grassy area with little tarmac roads running hither and thither. One lane leads out to the cricket club, where visiting batsmen are often trapped LBW while admiring the view over the bowler’s arm.
Another heads past the church to the only bit of 20th century to encroach on Biddestone’s beauty, a well-formed little estate of homes. And the third is the lane in from Chippenham, that opens up to this grand, wide, picture-perfect green and honey Cotswold main street.
The White Horse does everything you want it to - amazing Sunday lunches that you’d best be booking advance, a wide range of ales and ciders, and a great family atmosphere. It’s had hundreds of reviews on TripAdvisor and still averages 4.5 out of 5.
Biddestone is small enough to wander about in and not get lost, just about big enough to spend an afternoon, and is the perfect launch pad to go for a ramble - the wonderful Wiltshire Walks website has a great four-mile walk out into the countryside to the west and the deep valley of Colerne Park, before returning for rest and refreshment back at the White Horse.
They also retell the story of the explanation for the unusual church in Biddestone. It’s fairly small but has a rare stone bell tower and inside, a gallery level. That was constructed after the Civil War because the parishioners in neighbouring Slaughterford had their church destroyed, so came to Biddestone to worship. The legend goes that the Biddestone parishioners didn’t much like the intrusion and didn’t get on with their neighbours, but the truth is probably that the gallery level was simply built to increase capacity. Some of the old high backed box pews still remain - an increasingly rare thing, even in Wiltshire country churches these days.
* To get to Biddestone by car, just head out of Bristol on the A420 through Kingswood and up onto the Cotswolds past Warmley. Biddestone is on the right before you reach Chippenham. By public transport, take the train to Chippenham, and the village is served by five different bus routes.
Read next:
- The Cotswold village dubbed 'most beautiful in England' which you'll recognise from Bridget Jones' Diary
- The secret beach 'just like Thailand' a 90 minute drive from Taunton
- The 'most beautiful village in England' is just an hour from Bristol
Sign up for our What's On in Bristol newsletter packed with essential stories to help you make the most of living in the city.
