Say “the Cotswolds” to any seasoned traveler, and a imaginative and prescient of traditional British countryside dwelling rapidly springs to thoughts. Cobbled streets lined with rambling chocolate field cottages, with limestone facades lined in vines and spring blossoms? Examine. Sweeping meadows dotted with cows and trimmed with wildflowers, soundtracked by a refrain of morning sparrows? Examine. Stately properties and gardens to wander via on a lazy afternoon, adopted by a go to to a comfortable pub to get pleasure from a pint by the hearth? Examine.

But what lends the Cotswolds its distinctive magic isn’t simply its magnificence, however the coronary heart and soul—and neighborhood—that retains this magnificence alive. (These villages could appear to be picture-postcard idylls, however it takes lots of maintenance to make sure they keep that manner, and to keep away from them turning into a type of Jane Austen Disneyland.) It’s a undeniable fact that Caryn Hibbert, the founding father of Thyme—a sprawling property throughout the village of Southrop that’s nominally a lodge, however feels extra like its personal, self-contained hamlet—is aware of all too properly. Having first moved to the world from London in 2002 with the intention of opening a cookery college, Hibbert has slowly—and, sure, organically—advanced Thyme right into a 150-acre paradise that now encompasses a farm, restaurant, pub, spa, and 31 rooms unfold throughout the assorted barns, manor homes, and outbuildings that make up the property.