A new home for Sawday's Special Self-Catering Places in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Eire, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal

Hire the whole house or mix and match for smaller groups. Orchard, wood and mountain views, lovely pool with jacuzzi, a river down the lane

Take the whole house! So wonderful for a big family gathering. But for smaller groups there are endless mix-and-match possibilities: an apartment under the eaves; one bedroom in the tower; a wheelchair friendly studio on the ground floor. The apartment, with a big salon and a kitchen on the landing, is self-contained; the rest share the big, golden-yellow, beautifully equipped kitchen with its table for 16. Unless you're in one big party, you'll be making new friends. Bedrooms are freshly painted to match their names – Lavender, Verveine, Apricot – and are simply and charmingly furnished: voile curtains, pretty brocante. Bathrooms are spotless and chic. Downstairs, where the walls are a metre thick and the ceilings vaulted, is the living room, cosy with a wood-burning stove, heaps of books, music and piano, a tapestry on the wall. Clare adores her maison de maître; it stands in a walled garden on the edge of the village, its views of orchards, woods and mountains changing colour with each hour. In summer you can splash in a lovely pool with a jacuzzi, or swim in the river five minutes down the lane.

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