London to the Cotswolds by Chauffeur

Perhaps you sleep near Burford, eat near Kingham and call on somebody near Broadway. Between those three points run lanes without lighting, without pavements, hedged higher than the roof of the car. Do the driving yourself and one of you goes without a drink while both of you squint for pheasants once it gets dark. That, more than anything else, is why guests take a chauffeur for the whole weekend instead of just the run down.

Which end of the region you're aiming for decides whether the M40 drops you at Junction 8 or at Junction 9. After that everything alters: the A40 running through Witney and Burford, or else the A44 towards Chipping Norton and Moreton-in-Marsh. Beyond those, single-track lanes, dry stone walls, villages that turn up with no warning whatsoever. Satellite navigation takes a rosy view of such roads. Your chauffeur doesn't.

Spend two to three hours leaving London behind and you arrive somewhere properly quiet; the hours themselves go by without much effort. Best of all is the final half hour, when Oxfordshire softens around you and the stone shifts colour as Gloucestershire begins. Plenty of guests ask to break in Burford or Stow-on-the-Wold along the way. We're glad to write that into the timing beforehand.

Weekends, not transfers, account for most of what we do in the Cotswolds. The pattern repeats: down on a Friday afternoon, the car on hand through Saturday for lunches, house visits and dinner, then home on Sunday at whatever hour finally suits everybody. Wedding parties often want several cars across the same weekend, so arrivals are coordinated and nobody ends up standing on gravel in the rain waiting for a lift.