If you wanted to show a first time visitor to this green and pleasant land an example of classic Englishness, you couldn’t chose a better place than the Thyme.

A grand country farmhouse built from local stone and surrounded by the picture postcard countryside of the Cotswolds. An estate with kitchen gardens, stone cottages and its own, timeless village pub. A hotel with an obsession with fine food created from traditional, locally grown produce. A visitor from – say – America or South Africa would be enchanted by Thyme.

But you don’t have to be from overseas to appreciate this hotel’s gentle qualities and age-old atmosphere. If you’re taking a luxury, tailor-made holiday in the UK it’s worth remembering that Thyme is the sort of place that makes you pause and remember what it’s like to be English. And how areas like the Cotswolds seem to have remained untouched by the pace and noise of the modern world.