Castle Combe
Castle Combe in the Cotswolds of Wiltshire has been described on several occasions as the most beautiful village in England, a title it shares with several competitors but wears with some justification given the particular perfection of its combination of Cotswold stone buildings, the Bybrook stream running through the lower village and the complete absence of any intrusive modern development that might disturb the essentially medieval character of its streets and buildings. The village was used as a location for the filming of Doctor Dolittle in 1967 and various other productions since, and the absence of television aerials, satellite dishes and modern shop fronts from the main street reflects the village's commitment to maintaining its historic character.
The village developed its prosperity during the medieval and Tudor periods as a cloth-making centre, and the wealth generated by the wool trade funded the building of the handsome Perpendicular Gothic church of St Andrew, the market cross and the stone-built cottages along the main street that create the streetscape for which Castle Combe is celebrated. The church contains memorials to the de Dunstanville family, who gave the village its name from the castle that stood above it in the Norman period, and to other local families who benefited from and contributed to the medieval prosperity of the settlement.
The lower village, where the Bybrook flows between stone-built cottage gardens and beneath an ancient packhorse bridge, is the most picturesque section and provides the views most reproduced in Cotswold tourism literature. The combination of the stream, the bridge, the mill and the cottages in a narrow valley setting creates a scene of particular concentrated beauty that is most rewarding in the early morning before the visitor traffic of the day begins.
The Castle Combe motor racing circuit, confusingly, is located at a considerable distance from the village and bears no visual relationship to the historic settlement.