Most beautiful villages (From The Oxford Times)

Most beautiful villages

8:10am Thursday 9th July 2009 in

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Picture postcard views of Dorchester represent Oxfordshire’s only entry in The Most Beautiful Villages of England (Thames and Hudson, £14.95.

It’s a contentious selection, and a coffee table book par exellence, with a short entry on each village by James Bentley. Pride of place goes to the photographs by Hugh Palmer. In Dorchester, he captures the George Hotel, as well as some unexpected views of the abbey and its monuments, with a special mention of the 14th-century east window depicting the Tree of Jesse, Jesus’s family tree.

There’s the war memorial and a few cottages, then we move on to the Derbyshire village of Edensor, overlooked by Chatsworth House.

If you want ‘honeyed Cotswold stone’, you have to settle for Lower and Upper Slaughter, with pictures of the villages nestling in the snow.

The publishers hope the book will sell to Britons forced by the recession to holiday at home, but in truth it is more likely to appeal to foreigners who want a memento of their visit.