2 bedroom

Two bedroom cottage with patio garden and single garage.

The Playing Close lies at the heart of the Cotswold market town of Charlbury, on the River Evenlode. It is an easy walk to the shops just a few hundred yards away, and the fine old library and museum. The development is built in local stone and arranged so as to create a traditional Cotswold street and a secluded garden square. The swimming pavilion is there for relaxation throughout the year.

Charlbury derives its name from the borough of the Saxon ceorl, free men who had escaped the shackles of serfdom for a year and a day in the primeval royal forest of Wychwood. Henry III granted a charter in 1256 establishing Charlbury as a market town of about 600, a figure guaged by the ‘Smoke Farthing‘ which every household had to contribute to the church. Its ancient market and quarterly fairs became a mecca for Elizabethan merchants, according to a list of those fined for making ‘excessive Lucre‘.

In the records of 1843 a man sold his wife, in a halter, in the market place for half-a-crown and sealed the deal in the 16th century Bull Inn immediately behind The Playing Close. ‘Ye Pleyying Place‘ was owned by Eynsham Abbey in medieval times and in 1488 the town beadle and woodward collected the rent for it of ‘three barbed arrows‘.

Oxford is a short distance by train from Brunel‘s delightful station with its prize-winning gardens and old time charm. (about 17 minutes). A regular bus service takes the country village route to Chipping Norton, Witney and Oxford, and the neighbouring market town of Woodstock about six miles distant. Burford is about nine miles and Witney eight miles.