South Cerney

South Cerney has a Cotswold address and none of the hills, which is the first thing the holiday-let listings leave out. What it has instead is water: old gravel pits left to fill with lakes, so half the weekend traffic arrives towing a paddleboard and the other half is stuck behind it. The old village of stone cottages and a stream along the street holds the middle, ringed by newer estates and lodges put up by people who correctly guessed that a flooded quarry sells better than a dry one.