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Stanton is recognised as ‘the perfect Cotswold village’ (photo: Lesley Williams)

STANTON

It has been called the perfect Cotswold village, and not without good reason. It is, in truth, almost too perfect, like a Hollywood director’s idea of a ‘quaint’ English village. In these days of bland architecture, insensitive development and myopic planning, Stanton very nearly jars with a sense of unreality! Its origins are simple. The village was basically a group of 16th-century cottages and farmhouses (Stanton, or Stan Tun, meaning ‘stony farm’) built from local stone in such a sympathetic manner that they seem to have grown straight out of the ground.

When Sir Philip Stott came to Stanton Court in 1906 he found the village rather neglected, and from then until his death in 1937 he spent much money and architectural talent on restoring it to the splendour we see today. Unlike Broadway, Stanton has not been overrun by the motor car, or by advertisements. As such one wanders through in a dream of past centuries.