Bibury

Arlington Row was built around 1380 as a monastic wool store and converted to weavers' cottages in the seventeenth century, when the cloth woven there was taken to Arlington Mill to be fulled; the row of steep-gabled stone houses along a lane above the water meadow is the single most photographed street in the Cotswolds and has been reproduced in the British passport. William Morris called Bibury the most beautiful village in England, a line the village has traded on since. Rack Isle, the marshy meadow in front of the row, took its name from the racks on which the cloth was stretched to dry and is now a wildfowl reserve. Bibury Trout Farm, working since 1902, is one of the oldest in the country.

What you actually see

• Arlington Row - fourteenth-century wool store turned weavers' cottages.
• Rack Isle - the meadow where cloth was stretched, now a wildfowl reserve.
• The trout farm - a working hatchery running since 1902.
• The Coln - a clear chalk-fed stream running through the village.

When to go

April to October; early morning is the only realistic time to see Arlington Row without crowds. Autumn and winter weekdays are quiet and the stone looks better in low light.

Honest expectations

Bibury is small and receives very large numbers of visitors, with coaches and cars filling narrow lanes; residents of Arlington Row live in the cottages and have had persistent problems with people photographing through windows. Parking is minimal and the village has asked visitors to use public transport.

Nearby

Cirencester lies southwest; Burford and the Coln valley villages are close.