Arlington Row, Bibury, Glos
Henry Ford certainly thought Arlington Row was an icon of England. On a trip to the Cotswolds he tried to buy the entire row of houses to ship back to Michigan so that he could include them in Greenfield Village, his history theme park. (Luckily for the village of Bibury, he had to make do with a single cottage from Chedworth instead).
You can see the attraction. This picturesque row of weavers' cottages with higgledy-piggledy tiles on their low roofs, cheerful window-boxes, deep-set windows and sloping gables, mellowing grey local stone and a gentle stream full of rainbow trout winding past, is a vision of rural England past.
Henry Ford was not the only one to notice this, however. Ever since William Morris, who had his summer home nearby, declared Bibury “the most beautiful village in England”, the photographers, artists and tourists have been flocking here. Arlington Row is probably one of the most photographed views in the Cotswolds, although nowadays you’d be lucky to get a shot that didn’t include a tour bus.
Photo: Courtesy of Cotswold Tourism. www.cotswold.gov.uk/go/tourism
NOMINATION 817 OF 1170
Because it is one of the oldest habited row of houses in the country and is a place that tourists flock to when they visit the Cotswolds
Elizabeth Sylvester-Gray
My father spent part of his childhood in one of these cottages, probably in the 1920s or 30s. He remembered it as being rather cold and damp. He grew up to be the writer PH (Howard) Newby and was the first winner of the Booker Prize with his novel "Something To Answer For".
Sarah Schenk
Idyllic country scenes became iconic once the majority of us were living in urban squalor, or, in my view worse, suburbia. Read Paxman's book!
Janet Simpson
