But I’d made friends who lived on The Other Side, as my neighbour the artist Daniel Chadwick refers to that infamous stretch of the Cotswolds that begins at Stow-on-the-Wold, creeps past Daylesford and then gallops through Oxfordshire, towards Chipping Norton and Burford and the bucolic villages of Great Tew, Duns Tew and Little Tew. In certain circles it has become de rigueur to add a manor house in Oxfordshire (that is, if they can find something for under ten mil, which is almost impossible) to an already bulging property portfolio that generally includes a wedding-cake-style house in Holland Park, a beach palace in Ibiza and a chalet in Verbier at the very least.