Discover boutique hotels in Wiltshire, United Kingdom
The county of chalk and cheese loaf bristles with history and local legends. Commune with the ancients at Stonehenge and the Avebury Circle, forage in farmers’ markets and scale the cathedral spires in the magnificent mediaeval city of Salisbury, unfurl your picnic rug by the River Avon or wend your way through the enchanting cottages and cloisters of Lacock. Grazing uplands are flanked by the dairy farms that fleck the dales, and villages of oyster-coloured Cotswold stone bed down on the hill verges, making the most of the springs that emerge between chalk and clay. It’s also the cantering grounds for over a dozen white chalk horses etched into the hillsides. As much as we shy from superlatives, Wiltshire really couldn’t be much lovelier.
When to go
Spring and summer are England’s most straightforwardly lovely seasons and June to September offers your best hope for glorious sunshine. But the South West is typically milder and wetter than the rest of the country, and a cathedral town like Salisbury, admired from a snug pub fireside on a crisp winter’s day, has enticements all of its own.