Northleach Is the Classic Cotswolds Town You've Never Heard Of. Now It's

Home , Northleach

Source: The Sunday Times {Home} Edition: Country: UK Date: Sunday 8, February 2015 Page: 26,27 Area: 1310 sq. cm Circulation: ABC 801623 Weekly Ad data: page rate £60,690.00, scc rate £144.00 Phone: 020 7782 5000 Keyword: The Buying Solution All set for stardom

Northleach is the classic Cotswolds town you’ve never heard of. Now it’s the setting foraTV adaptation of JK Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy. Better get in quick, says RuthBloomfield

It will also be shown on the American network HBO, giving location, they are up by 27.2%, Northleach (and the towns of with a typical home valued at Painswick and Minchinhampton, £438,103. where filming also took place) Matthew Harvey, a director of W a global audience. Tayler & Fletcher estate agency, hen the location “At the moment, Northleach is doesn’t believe Northleach is in scouts for the TV dramatisation of kind of undiscovered,” said Katy any way inferior to Stow and its The Casual Vacancy, JK Rowling’s Freeman, local branch manager fellow magnets for London money. first novel for grown-ups, were of Harrison James Hardie estate Instead, he blames its low profile hunting for a spot for filming, they agency. “Yet it is beautiful, and on a historic stigma — the A40 needed an idyllic West Country it has absolutely everything you bisected the town until a bypass town with “pretty facades”. would need — shops, cafes, pubs, was built in the 1980s. “I think A traditional high street and an a school and a doctor’s surgery. people still think of it as being adorable jumbleofhoney-coloured Ithink the locals likethe fact that split down the middle, and don’t cottages and elegant Georgian it is not too busy.” really consider it.” townhouses made Northleach, in A typical Northleach property A more substantial concern is Gloucestershire, the answer to is a three-bedroom townhouse the lack of a station.Commuters their prayers. Yet the producers built with Cotswold stone, often must drive to Kemble, 16 miles could have been forgiven for grade II listed. According to away, where they can catch the responding: “Northwhere?” Freeman, this kind of home would train to London Paddington, which Although this small town 10 cost about £350,000. Transplanted takes 78 minutes. miles northeast of Cirencester to chichi Bourton-on-the-Water, Yet for those who don’t need to possesses the chocolate-box looks six miles away, the same property make a daily trek to the capital, that have madethe Cotswolds one would set buyers back as much as the charms of Northleach, which of the most sought-after locations 10% more. A detached house in isroughly equidistant between in Britain, for buyers as well as Northleach with five bedrooms Gloucester and Oxford, are hard to production crews, it has been would be £750,000-£800,000 — resist — from its 14th-century thoroughly overshadowed by more again, that’s good value by gothic church,often called “the fashionableaddresses such as Cotswolds standards. cathedral of the Cotswolds”, to its Stow-on-the-Wold and Lower According to researchbySavills winding high street, lined with and Upper Slaughter. estate agency, Northleach missed shops both everyday (butcher, Nevertheless, Northleach’s star out in the great property recovery greengrocer, Post Office) and will rise when Rowling’s tale of of 2014 — at an average of frivolous (beauty salon, bespoke Pagford,afictional town torn apart £315,350, prices today are only doll’s house designer and swish by parish-council politicking — 0.1% higher than they were at the wine bar). starring Keeley Hawes, Rory nadir of themarket in 2009. By Families are drawn to the town Kinnear and Michael Gambon — contrast, in Stow-on-the-Wold, because its primary school is is screened on BBC1 next week. a more sought-after Cotswold rated “good” byOfsted,and the

Reproduced by Gorkana under licence from the NLA (newspapers), CLA (magazines), FT (Financial Times/ft.com) or other copyright owner. No further copying (including printing of digital cuttings), digital reproduction/forwarding of the cutting is permitted except under licence from the copyright owner. All FT content is copyright The Financial Times Ltd. Article Page 1 of 5 312277388 - CRAWRI - A19673-3 - 95757755 Source: The Sunday Times {Home} Edition: Country: UK Date: Sunday 8, February 2015 Page: 26,27 Area: 1310 sq. cm Circulation: ABC 801623 Weekly Ad data: page rate £60,690.00, scc rate £144.00 Phone: 020 7782 5000 Keyword: The Buying Solution

capital, hopes The Casual Vacancy will give thetownafillip in terms community hall has a busy of visitors. “I think it will help to programme of reiki and Zumba put us on the map,” he says. classes. There are also two Quite what impact theTVseries museums: one in the former House will have on the local property of Correction, which now hosts market, however, is hard to pin exhibits about 19th-century down — particularlyinanelection prison life, and another devoted year, when national property to musicboxes. price growth is expected to be Residents areamixtureof those muted at best. Bramwell thinks it born and bred in the area, early will beamarketing toolfor estate retirees who have chosen agents, and Harvey agrees that Northleach for its good facilities, the effect should be positive. “I am and Londoners who have perhaps not saying that prices are going to been priced out of the swankier storm away, but a raised profile towns and villages. Lauren Larner, can benobad thing,” he says. 22, falls into the first category: Thankfully, the locals also insist she returned home last summer that thetownisdevoid of the after studying for a degree in back-stabbing and poison-pen zoology at Reading University. campaigns depicted in The Casual She wants to get a relevant job, Vacancy. “I have a lot of really but is hoping to stay local. close friends, which Ithink is “I do have mixed feelings about what happens in a small town,” Northleach,” she says. “Since I Larner says. came back after uni, I have realised WhileNorthleach is everybit that thereisnotalot to do, but it is as beautiful as it appears to be the peopleIhave grown up with on screen, any resemblance of whomaketheplace.” Larner has the fictional characters to real noticed the arrival of incomers residentsispurely coincidental. and tourists, but sees no conflict between the arrivistes and the old-timers. “I think we mix quite well,” shesays. Much of that mixing is done at the bar of one of the town’s three pubs, the most notableof which is theWheatsheaf.This creeper-clad building was a traditional watering holeuntil 2011, when Sam Pearman, an alumnus of Langan’s Brasserie, in Mayfair, and the Glasshouse, in Kew, reopened it as a smart gastropub. Jonathan Bramwell, a partner at the Buying Solution property agency, believes theWheatsheaf has been quietly raising Northleach’s profile ever since — buyers from London are comfortedbythe fact that they are not too far from a dinner of spatchcock poussin. Thepubhas hotel rooms, too, so it has opened theareaup to visitors. Tom Hughes, manager of the Wheatsheaf,whomoved to the Cotswolds after a stint as a management consultant in the

Reproduced by Gorkana under licence from the NLA (newspapers), CLA (magazines), FT (Financial Times/ft.com) or other copyright owner. No further copying (including printing of digital cuttings), digital reproduction/forwarding of the cutting is permitted except under licence from the copyright owner. All FT content is copyright The Financial Times Ltd. Article Page 2 of 5 312277388 - CRAWRI - A19673-3 - 95757755 Source: The Sunday Times {Home} Edition: Country: UK Date: Sunday 8, February 2015 Page: 26,27 Area: 1310 sq. cm Circulation: ABC 801623 Weekly Ad data: page rate £60,690.00, scc rate £144.00 Phone: 020 7782 5000 Keyword: The Buying Solution

Enviable position Northleach has a lead roleinThe Casual Vacancy, alongsideJulia £445,00 McKenzie, left, and below, from left, Michael 0 Gambon, Keeley Hawes and Rory Kinnear

COTTAGE

At a rather compact 1,313 sq ft, Union Cottage nevertheless squeezes in three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a utility room and acellar. 01993 822661, jackson-stops.co.uk

£325,000

SEMI Recently extended, with views over the Cotswold countryside, this four-bedroom house on the High Street has an open-plan kitchen-diner and a study. Stow-on- 01993 775320, the-Wold gatekeeper.co.uk

Bourton-on- Cheltenham the-Water

A429 A40 M5 Northleach A Kemble Cirencester A433 10 miles

Reproduced by Gorkana under licence from the NLA (newspapers), CLA (magazines), FT (Financial Times/ft.com) or other copyright owner. No further copying (including printing of digital cuttings), digital reproduction/forwarding of the cutting is permitted except under licence from the copyright owner. All FT content is copyright The Financial Times Ltd. Article Page 3 of 5 312277388 - CRAWRI - A19673-3 - 95757755 Source: The Sunday Times {Home} Edition: Country: UK Date: Sunday 8, February 2015 Page: 26,27 Area: 1310 sq. cm Circulation: ABC 801623 Weekly Ad data: page rate £60,690.00, scc rate £144.00 Phone: 020 7782 5000 Keyword: The Buying Solution

Adam Burton/Chris Rose/Cotswold Photo Library/SFL Travel/Alamy; Richard Cummins/Getty; Joan Wakeham/Rex; Steffan Hill/Bronte Film and Television/BBC

Reproduced by Gorkana under licence from the NLA (newspapers), CLA (magazines), FT (Financial Times/ft.com) or other copyright owner. No further copying (including printing of digital cuttings), digital reproduction/forwarding of the cutting is permitted except under licence from the copyright owner. All FT content is copyright The Financial Times Ltd. Article Page 4 of 5 312277388 - CRAWRI - A19673-3 - 95757755 Source: The Sunday Times {Home} Edition: Country: UK Date: Sunday 8, February 2015 Page: 26,27 Area: 1310 sq. cm Circulation: ABC 801623 Weekly Ad data: page rate £60,690.00, scc rate £144.00 Phone: 020 7782 5000 Keyword: The Buying Solution

Northleach is home to honey-stone cottages, atraditionalhigh street and amedieval church often called ’the cathedral of the Cotswolds