Chipping Campden

Chipping Campden is the High Street every Cotswold tea towel is quietly copying, built by wool merchants who wanted the neighbours to know exactly how rich they were. Six centuries on, the honey-coloured showing-off is protected by law, so this is a town where even the boasting is listed. The last people to make unauthorised alterations to a Campden house were Royalists in 1645, who took the whole manor down, and the planning officers have been twitchy ever since. Buy here for the stone, and accept that the stone outranks you.