Castle Combe

Castle Combe was a wool town, with weavers' cottages along the By Brook and a market cross where cloth was traded, and when the trade moved to towns with better water power the village simply stopped, which is why the honey-coloured stone houses are largely fifteenth to seventeenth century with almost nothing added since. There are no aerials or visible wiring on the main street. St Andrew's church has a faceless clock of around 1380, one of the oldest working in the country. The village has been used repeatedly in film, including Doctor Dolittle in 1967, which built a temporary harbour on the brook, and War Horse and Stardust since. A motor racing circuit sits on a wartime airfield a mile away, which supplies the village's other noise.

Highlights

• The wool cottages - fifteenth to seventeenth-century weavers' houses in stone.
• The market cross - a covered cross where cloth was traded.
• The faceless clock - a working mechanism of about 1380 in the church.
• The By Brook - the stream and its bridge at the bottom of the street.

When to go

April to October for the best light; the village is small and fills with coach parties from mid-morning, so early or late is much better. Autumn and winter mornings with mist are the photographers' choice.

Things to know

The village is one street and takes half an hour, and it is genuinely overwhelmed by visitor numbers relative to its size. Cars must be left in the car park above and walked in. Everything is private housing; there is no attraction to enter.

Nearby

Lacock lies southeast; Bath is about twenty kilometres southwest.

Key facts