Cottages

Bruern Cottages, Oxfordshire

Plush furnishings, beautiful antiques and toys, toys and more toys make these upmarket properties a hit with both parents and their children.

Two storeys, a canopied bed, a dresser, table and chairs and cushioned windowseat…and that’s just the Wendy house. Bruern’s 12 upmarket cottages, with interiors to rival the Wendy house, really do cater for children.

Dumper trucks and push cars litter the pretty walled garden with its apple trees, colourful flowers and tunnel of wisteria. There’s also a heated play cabin with everything from a well-stocked dressing-up box to a dolls’ house, Noah’s Ark, farm toys and an easel with crayons (there’s even a comfy sofa for parents to sit on). It doesn’t end there: there’s also a climbing frame, child-sized croquet, cricket and tennis, a heated pool and a separate games room with table tennis, table football, snooker and a piano.

Child safety is paramount – as well as the well-maintained communal walled garden, many of the cottages come with their own enclosed lawns. And parents get what Bruern calls its Peace of Mind Kit, incorporating everything from electricity socket guards to safety locks for cupboard doors. Meanwhile, if you fancy a night out, babysitting can be arranged.

With facilities like these for the kids, you can expect – and get – top-notch conditions for adults. These cottages, built by the Victorians for the horses, carriages and grooms of Bruern Abbey, wouldn’t look out of place in the pages of Country Living. It’s not surprising when you find out that owner, the Honourable Judy Astor (politician Nancy Astor’s daughter in law), has been helped by her sister, interior designer Jocasta Innes.

Fabrics by designers such as Nina Campbell, Osborne & Little and Mulberry are the norm, in a plethora of colours and textures, from shimmering silks through to thick tweeds. The result is a country-style décor highlighted by well-placed antiques, as well as marble washbasins from France and four-posters in the master bedrooms. The little details haven’t been forgotten either, with proper lighting for reading, a smattering of games and books and a choice of blankets or duvets on the beds.

You get plenty of extras too – and we’re not just talking about the complimentary water and White Company toiletries. Welcome baskets here really are welcoming, with a bottle of champagne and a whole hamper of goodies including homemade bread and cake. And the well-stocked kitchens also contain life’s little essentials such as champagne flutes and picnic baskets.

If you’d rather not spoil the sheen on the marble or granite worktops with your own cooking preparations, Bruern has a choice of ready-cooked meals which can be complemented with its own home-grown freshly picked fruit and vegetables, or you can call in a chef to do the cooking.

If there is a downside to all this luxury, it’s that guests need to leave at 10am sharp on the day of their departure to ensure that the cottages are sufficiently prepared for their next visitors – which means there’s no lingering over breakfast.

Although all the cottages are special in their own right (Saratoga with its galleried bedroom is the perfect romantic hideaway, while the Swedish-influenced Newmarket is equipped for disabled guests), the one best suited to groups is the newest cottage, Weir.

Built with entertaining in mind, it has an enormous open-plan kitchen and dining room leading on to the living area, leaving enough space for a series of adjoining tables to seat up to 30. In warm weather, you can also eat alfresco under the vine-covered pergola on the terrace.

The modern Cotswold stone-floored kitchen comes with not one but two dishwashers, along with an industrial-sized fridge and a food warmer. And there’s plenty of space for relaxing, with a library containing a 50-inch plasma television opening on to a beamed seating area with open fire (although Weir also comes with underfloor heating).

All five ensuite bedrooms – three on the ground floor and two upstairs – are as beautifully furnished as the other cottages with lots of rich textiles and antiques. One of the twin rooms has a distinctly French feel with two 19th-century beds and red and white upholstered chairs to match the curtains.

And, of course, children aren’t forgotten here, with a dolls’ house in the hall along with a selection of wooden toys, dressing-up clothes and a puppet theatre in their own den built under the stairs.