Shipton

Shipton Holiday Cottage, which sleeps six, is converted from a long, low Cotswold  stone barn and is on one level. It is on the left of Bookers Drive as you turn in, and it has its own car park to the right. It's pale and cool and full of light: when you go in from the drive to the big open-plan drawing-room/dining-room/kitchen you can see straight through the French doors opposite, to the terrace and apple orchard beyond. The atmosphere is very much of the present, with natural floors in stone and wood, a high pitched ceiling with ancient beams, and a cool simplicity of decoration.

The focal point of the room is a white ceramic Scandinavian wood-burning stove, Gustavian in inspiration, around which are grouped a large cream sofa (cushioned in down), a deep armchair and a 19th century French provincial sofa, also down-cushioned.

In Shipton Holiday Cottage there's a big white pile rug on the creamy Cotswold fossil stone floor, and walls are painted a subtle off-white, with the woodwork of the Shaker-style kitchen one shade deeper.

Over the blue-and-white dining-table, painted by Thomas Lane in a Moorish design, hangs a Victorian rise-and-fall brass pendant lamp. The pictures are modern, abstract and semi-abstract paintings and prints.

A white-carpeted corridor leads off the kitchen to the two twin-bedded rooms, the first papered in a blue-and-white stripe, with blue-and-pink Borderlines paisley headboards and blind. Its ensuite shower-room has a charcoal slate floor, and beige marbleised tiles around the shower enclosure.

At the end of the corridor is the blue room, which has a beamed, high pitched ceiling and twin four-posters in black metal. The curtains are off-white, bound in three different blues to match the window seat cushion, and lined in an indigo-and-white John Stefanides printed cotton. The ensuite shower-room has a pale tiled floor and white marble tiles.

At the other end of the drawing-room, a door leads into the master bedroom, which has a high pitched roof and walls of palest grey. There's a rose-and-cream kelim on the pale, polished wooden floor, and opposite the antique French black metal four-poster is a large cream-painted French armoire. The curtains are off-white, and lined in a pink-and-white toile de jouy. Beside the cupboard is a 19th century French fauteuil, upholstered in a rose-and-cream Colefax & Fowler leopard print. Its ensuite bathroom has a power shower over the bath, a marble basin with cupboard underneath, and lavatory and bidet screened off.

Doors lead out from both master bedroom and drawing-room to the terrace and the orchard. Round the gnarled and ancient apple trees in the velvety green grass are deep borders of roses, peonies, lilies and poppies, over which can be seen the roofs of Bruern Abbey. Shipton Holiday Cottage is near the games room and its garden is safely enclosed, with trellis or yew hedges all round: the gate is secured by a big bolt at the top, out of reach of children.