I want to move here ...

Sigh. I'm such an Anglophile. I love British history and I love old places, these charming towns of beautiful honey-colored stone houses, heaps of flowers, and meandering rivers.

Rudyard Kipling writes, "A day in the car in an English county is like a day in some fairy museum where all the exhibits are alive and real."

So true. Speaking of museums, yesterday The Mister and I went to the local museum in Burford and learned more about the history of our town and the place we have been staying.

Our cottage address is 6 George's Yard. The photo below is a section of High Street in Burford. See the arch? The building to the right of the arch was The George, an inn in this prosperous wool-market town.

In the early 1500s, Anne Boleyn stayed at The George. In the 1600s King Charles II would bring his long-time "special friend" Eleanor "Nell" Gwynn to The George.

Through that arch was "the yard" for The George, where horses and carriages would park. And through that arch is where we're living.

You see these arches on high streets throughout the Cotswolds. Know I know what they were for.

Here (below) is Earl going through the arch, back to our cottage. So quiet back here but so close to town.

We often look at the stone and brick walkway and try to imagine a different era, with wagon wheels and horses rattling along this path.

We found out that our row of 4 cottages (below) started as stables built in the 1400s for The George (hence the address of George's Yard). Later the stables were converted into living quarters for wool tradesmen.

We learned about the roofs, too. Almost every single roof in Burford, and around The Cotswolds, has this roof which we found out is STONE.

We thought roofs were a slate of some kind. But at the museum we saw how individual heavy stone pieces have a wooden piece inserted in them and then are "hung" on boards across the roof. That's it -- no mortar or anything! 

I keep telling The Mister I want to move to The Cotswolds. He just smiles because he knows I don't mean it. But just for the record, here are some of the houses I have specifically pointed out that I want ...

 

Though I do gravitate to the larger homes, my needs are fairly simple. Really!

But the other day, our friend Charles Cowdery posted this beautiful Cotswold house (photo below) on my Facebook page. It's for sale for 11-million pounds. Now it's the one I want! I'm sure it has gobs of history! Sorry, Earl, you should have purchased sooner.