Here are the available villas for rental in England.

Walkies for rovers on the Scillies

From the Daily Mail

Have dog, will travel. For me, a holiday is not a holiday without my basset hound Basil, and we've just had the time of our lives on the almost heavenly Isles of Scilly.
We flew from Penzance by helicopter, Basil beside my seat in a special Sky Kennel for the 20-minute flight; no problems. We took the airport bus to the tourist office for our free 'whoopsie kits' (I pride myself on being a responsible dog owner) and went on by taxi to our self-catering accommodation, Standing Stone, on the main island, St Mary's.
Described in the brochure as 'set in rugged isolation', Standing Stone was stunningly located on a flower farm overlooking the sea and a deserted, silver-sanded cove. However, our taxi driver, having wittered on about his shock absorbers, refused to bump the last rugged half-mile to the front door.
So what, I thought? I like being off the beaten track. So did Basil. Outside was doggy heaven, with hundreds of rabbits to be chased across grass that had been nibbled to a gorgeous, velvety smoothness.
'Thanks to the rabbits, we have not mowed our lawn for two years,' said our landlord as we sat in the private walled garden, perfume wafting from the flower fields, the beach scattered with shells and the sea as turquoise and clear as the Indian Ocean.
Only a few yards away was Bant's Carn, a perfectly preserved burial chamber, and the amazing stone excavations of 3,000-year-old houses, walls and garden plots.
It was bliss for two days. But rapture dimmed on the third day when it rained. Why is rain on holiday so much wetter? The magical, scenic, two-and-a-half-mile walk to the shops (and back, because no taxis were available) seemed suddenly daunting.
Try tramping along a coastal path in blustery gales, rain like stair rods, fleece saturated, loaded down with tins of Chum and food rations, and you soon feel sorry for yourself. Back indoors the terrible smell of wet dog pervaded Standing Stone and, curses, I'd forgotten the milk and cooking oil. But I must not grumble. ... more

The magic circles brought to life

Big rocks, so what? Stonehenge and much of the prehistoric landscape of Wessex can be all too easily dismissed in the hurly-burly of our 21st Century world.
In fact, the area - marked by sacred hills, rings, mounds and henges - speaks of a past where communities worshipped the unknown and acted out the great human themes of life and death under open skies.
The stones bound them to the sun and moon above, and the earth beneath.
Andante is a travel company run by archaeologists who are keen to bring ancient history alive. And to find out if they succeed, I went to explore the ancient sites of prehistoric Wessex.
The monuments cover vast areas, yet are linked. They frame and separate their part of the landscape from the world outside.
The two most famous, built around the time of the Egyptian pyramids, are Avebury and that icon of durability, Stonehenge.
Over a weekend based in Salisbury, Wiltshire, our guide and lecturer, Andrew Lawson, would take us to see the sites and explain what, when, who and why?
Andrew is the director of the Trust for Wessex Archaeology and he met our group of 10 in ye olde worlde bar of the Rose and Crown Hotel, Harnham, on the banks of the River Avon.
He enthused about his subject - and before dinner he gave us a focused lecture, quickly dismissing as fiction the theory that Stonehenge was built and used by druids.
William Stukeley, an l8th Century landscape archaeologist, came up with that one, and it still persists today.
An exhaustive dig by the Society of Antiquaries from 1919 destroyed much of what it was trying to understand, but when Professor Richard Atkinson became involved in the late Forties, Stonehenge began to make sense. ... more

Take time out on the marsh mellow

From the Mail on Sunday

As we bumped through the potholes along the unmade road, the taxi driver remarked that when you see dingy lace curtains at the windows of a hotel, you know you're not going to like it. Glancing at the sea to our right, grey in the twilight, and the suburban houses looming spookily to our left, I wondered whether he was telling me that Romney Bay House did or did not boast such depressing features.
There was no time to enquire, since the other houses suddenly petered out and we drew up in front of the hotel standing alone on the reedy marsh.
I'd come to Kent to visit my oldest chum who lives in an area I knew little about, and decided to put up at such a remote spot because this was a hotel with a history. Strange as it may seem to locate a house on the edge of bleak marshland, Romney Bay House was built in the 1920s for the Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper by Sir Clough Williams Ellis, creator of the Italianate Portmeirion in Wales.
Romney Marsh stretches along this sweeping coastline from Rye in the west to Hythe in the east. It was once a fashionable seaside playground with the nearby residence of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin attracting the great and the good.
Entirely submerged under the sea in ancient times, the marsh became properly habitable only when the construction of the Royal Military Canal in the early 19th century provided arterial drainage. Long before, in 55BC, Julius Caesar landed at Port Lympne; the area remains famous for its turbulent history of smuggling and derring-do.
All that was visible on my arrival were the clean, white, symmetrical lines of Romney Bay House. There were no dingy curtains inside, but for my taste a surfeit of swagging, cushions, ribbons and dried flowers. For all that, the atmosphere was warm and welcoming and pervaded by the heady scent of white lilies.
I was soon installed in one of the large attic bedrooms, where the intense quiet was interrupted only by the lapping of the waves outside. Staff were there should guests need them but stayed discreetly unobtrusive, so if you had come to get away from people you could help yourself from an honesty bar downstairs.
The potential for solitude was further enhanced by the lack of a telephone in the bedroom. And if you've left your kids behind for a weekend of peace, you won't run into anyone else's - they don't take them under 14. ... more

A remarkable island

I first visited the Isle of Man in 1980. It was TT week and the atmosphere was electric.
Since that time, I have revisited almost every year, my favourite part of the island being Port Erin and Port St Mary.
These days, I prefer the slower pace of life, somewhat distanced from the bikes!
For anyone who has not had the privilege of traveling to the "Misty Isle" I would thoroughly encourage you to do so at your earliest opportunity.
From the first time I set foot on the island, I experienced its very real and special magic, which returns each time I revisit.
Its beauty and tranquility are indescribable.
This year alone I have been fortunate enough to travel across three times, each visit being more magical than the last.
It's truly a remarkable island, upon which, one day, I hope to be able to settle.

Bewitched by the spell of Pendle

From the Mail on Sunday

Even when the sun is shining and the rivers merrily gurgle through the quaint villages and scenic countryside, there is something eerie about Lancashire's Ribble Valley.
Perhaps it's Pendle Hill, looming over the landscape with its dark and barren slopes. Or maybe it's the quietude of an area with such outstanding beauty you would expect it to be teeming with tourists, especially after the Queen revealed this was the place she would choose for her retirement.
Most probably it's because this is Lancashire Witch Country and - as any visitor to these 200 square miles north of Manchester and south of the Lake District soon finds out - there are spooky stories to be told.
The most famous is that of the Pendle Witches. In 1612, nine people from the villages beneath Pendle Hill were found guilty of witchcraft. Their crimes included paralysing a peddler, turning ale sour at a local inn and causing the slow death of a woman through crumbling a clay effigy. They were hanged at Lancaster Castle in the summer of the same year.
Whether these villagers really were practising evil arts or were merely victims of the tide of religious persecution by James I, their tale has inspired many writers to come up with either factual or fictionalised accounts, such as Robert Neil's classic novel, Mist Over Pendle.
Whatever the truth, the shadows remain. It's said that on Hallowe'en, witches roam the village of Sabden - which lies in the shadow of Pendle Hill - and each year hundreds of witch-spotters arrive in the hope of a sighting.
You might expect the witchcraft connection to be used as a tool to entice more visitors. In fact, surprisingly little is made of it. We only came across one souvenir shop and a rather small exhibition in Barrowford.
One of the few tourism publications on the subject is a map of the final journey taken by the Pendle Witches to Lancaster Castle. The 45-mile route for cars or bicycles includes a walk to the summit of Pendle Hill (it has no road) and a visit to the castle and museum at Clitheroe, the main town in the Ribble Valley. ... more