The secret Cotswolds guide

For those who prefer not to follow the crowd, we reveal some of the best, but relatively undiscovered places to enjoy in the country's chicest region

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° Cirencester Built on the sheep's back, now banking on the tourist dollar and 'down from London' (DFL) secondhomers, the Cotswolds is noted for pretty villages, great pubs, good food-and crowds. My strict instructions in compiling this guide were to avoid the honeypots and temples of taste and find the places not everyone knows about - where to stay, eat, shop and unwind in peace.

For this, I would need spies; a network of local intelligence to ferret out the stories of people and places flying under the radar. I began with my friend Frances in Cheltenham, who met me with her two whippets, Bertie and Maud, on a small industrial estate near her home. Here is La Boulangerie Artisan (laboulangerieartisan.co.uk), purveyor of allegedly the best almond croissants outside of France. Originally a wholesale bakery, it began selling baguettes and pastries from a side door at the start of the first Covid lockdown, before being joined by coffee roaster Ritual (ritualcoffee.org), a horsebox beside the bakery, with an espresso machine providing coffee to customers waiting for bread. These days, there is a smart little counter at the front of the bakery doing a brisk business in takeaway coffee, bread and pastries, and Ritual has opened a brew bar and kitchen on another industrial estate near the station, at which you can order from an all-day brunch menu and view beans roasting through a glass wall.

From there, we headed to The Halfway at Kineton (thehalfwayatkineton.com), hosted by Nathan Eades and Liam Goff, graduates of The Wild Rabbit at Kingham. It's Frances's favourite pub (you can stay here, too), although it doesn’t strictly conform to my brief after Giles Coren in The Times proclaimed the mushroom and celeriac pie to be the best in England.