Luxury self-catering accommodation in Saffron Walden

With barely a large high street name in sight, Saffron Walden’s twisting streets are littered with independent boutiques, coffee shops and secondhand bookstores piled high with aged pages. With the largest church in Essex, a town museum filled to the rafters with interesting artefacts and pretty gardens en masse, easy days are spent here. For those in search of history, medieval battle trenches form a footpath circle the town and several WWII pillboxes surrounding Audley End House (a former training base for Polish spies).

The surrounding countryside is a patchwork of sunshine yellow, emerald green and gleaming poly tunnels sprawling in every direction as far as the eye can see, crisscrossed with a network of public footpaths. With its warm climate and abundance of south facing fields, vineyards upon vineyards dot the Essex countryside, tempting long afternoons wandering between vines, taster flights and their accompanying cheeseboards all before hopping in a taxi (bottles of said samples in hand), to carry on the party at your luxury self-catering homestay.