Luxury holidays in Wiltshire

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.

Getting there

• Planes

  Bristol has the closest airport | where easyJet (www.easyjet.com) flies from Belfast | Edinburgh | Glasgow | Inverness and Newcastle. For international travel | London Heathrow is an hour and a half’s drive or so.

• Trains

  Direct trains from London Paddington take between one and two hours to reach Wiltshire stations, including Chippenham and Westbury. Salisbury and Tilsbury are on the West of England Main Line between Exeter and London Waterloo.

• Automobiles

  The county’s collection of market towns and country roads make for lovely and leisurely motoring. The M4 sweeps across the northern end | from London | through Swindon and into Bristol | and but Wiltshire’s scenic star is the A303 | which offers head-turning views of Stonehenge on the way into Devon.

• Taxis

  Always worth booking if you’re outside the larger cities. Your hotel can advise on the best firms.