United States of the Cotswolds: why rich Americans are moving in

Golden-hued in Cotswold stone, Digbeth Street in the chocolate-box village of Stow-on-the-Wold may be the last place you’d expect to see the stars and stripes. However, the United States of America flag flutters above D’Ambrosi Fine Foods like a beacon of Americana among the charming — and quintessentially British — tea shops and hiking retailers more commonly found in this part of the world.

Inside, the shelves aren’t stocked with the stereotypical Hershey candy bars or strawberry fluff (America’s answer to Angel Delight). “Nobody wants that. It’s disgusting,” says the shop’s owner, Jesse D’Ambrosi, who is from the suburbs of Boston.

Americans in England
As part of a rapidly rising community of Americans living in the Cotswolds, she knows that her fellow expats miss the staple ingredients of American home cooking the most, such as Diamond kosher salt, Arm & Hammer baking soda, A1 steak sauce and Welch’s grape jelly (jam to us Brits). Also popular are her takeaway tubs of “melting pot” food spanning cultures and continents, to recreate the Whole Foods-style deli counters her customers crave.

“I do have a huge American client base so I’m going for those really nostalgic flavours that we’re used to that you can’t find elsewhere,” D’Ambrosi, 43, says.

Much has been made of the influx of wealthy US nationals to London in recent years, with émigrés fleeing Trump and tech billionaires heading to west London, from Notting Hill to Kensington. But the takeover of this overwhelmingly rural West Country region by affluent US nationals is newer.

American ownership in England
Roll over each region to see the number of Land Registry titles registered to individuals with an US correspondence address, and estimated combined value of their properties.

According to a report from Savills estate agency, international buyers accounted for just over a fifth (21 per cent) of all sales at £1.5 million or above in the Cotswolds in 2025 — up from the 12 per cent average in the past five years. North Americans were by far the largest group of newcomers, making up 13 per cent of sales in this bracket, a huge jump from 3.5 per cent. The Buying Solution, an agency that sources country homes for ultra-high-net-worth clients, says that in the past year alone there was a 50 per cent rise in American clients looking for a Cotswolds pad.

For D’Ambrosi business is booming in ways she could never have predicted. Since opening as a café in 2020, she now caters for American-themed events, weddings and dinner parties at Cotswolds country homes, is launching a supper club this spring to help new arrivals feel at home, and D’Ambrosi Fine Foods is the official picnic supplier for the Longborough Festival Opera, a short drive from Stow-on-the-Wold.

“I never thought I’d be part of an expat group but I do organically have American friends here because there are a lot of us,” she says. “Some folks have a political motivation for leaving the US but I think a lot of Americans come as tourists and catch the bug because it’s just so terribly, breathtakingly beautiful and a genuinely nice place to live.”

Highest-value areas of the Cotswolds
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She rents a house on a farm on Stow’s outskirts and has high praise for the state school her daughter Rose, 8, attends. “That’s a draw for people that are coming here. The level of support provided, and the education, is up to a very, very high standard. I don’t think I would send her private even if I could.”

Some of America’s biggest, wealthiest names have recently found that the grass is greener in the Cotswold countryside. Notably, the former talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, swapped Montecito for the £15 million Kitesbridge Farm estate in late 2024. They put it on the market in July last year for £22.5 million then moved

The singer Beyoncé and her rapper husband, Jay-Z, were seen scouting local garden centres after news broke that they were planning to build a seven-bedroom house on a 58-acre, £7.5 million plot in the village of Wigginton, near Banbury. The sale was reportedly rained off last week, however, after the couple discovered the area was prone to flooding.

RH (formerly Restoration Hardware), an American luxury home furnishings retailer, is probably the most significant symbol of the American invasion in the Cotswolds in recent years, opening its first prime UK location at the 73-acre Aynho Park estate in June 2023. The actor Idris Elba was the DJ at the opening party, where DeGeneres and the American actress Sydney Sweeney were spotted. Soho Farmhouse, the private members’ club, continues to be a hit with Americans; Meghan Markle held her bridal shower there. But it has competition from Estelle Manor, an opulent private club-hotel that opened in May 2023; Kim Kardashian and Demi Moore are rumoured to be fans.

The value of the homes now being snapped up by US buyers in the Cotswolds is substantial. An analysis by Enness Global, an international finance brokerage, and the property brokerage Jefferies London of the number of Land Registry titles registered to people with an American correspondence address shows that the southeast accounts for 17.1 per cent of homes in England and Wales owned by US nationals. Westminster (3.51 per cent) and Kensington and Chelsea (3.04 per cent) were on top. The southwest (12.4 per cent) comes second.

American-registered homes in the Cotswold district council area have a combined value of £37 million, while those in Wiltshire council (the area around Castle Combe, Lacock and Malmesbury is a massive magnet for American buyers) contains £46.2 million of properties.

Stroud homes have a combined value of £4.7 million and those in Tewkesbury £9.6 million. Owners in west Oxfordshire — which includes Burford and Charlbury and is home to Soho Farmhouse, which has been the single biggest driver of American interest — account for £20.7 million of homes; Cheltenham £13.8 million.

In reality this is an absolutely vast understatement as a large number of wealthy American owners are likely to have properties registered to trusts or offshore companies not within the US, or to British addresses.

So why the Cotswolds? Experts say the area hits the sweet spot for the American desire for an old-fashioned British country lifestyle, plus easy accessibility to London, where many have other homes and business interests. Many fell in love with the Cotswolds after initially coming to London and taking day-trips, discovering an American community was already there.

“The American takeover of the Wolds is showing no signs of slowing. With an influx since the start of the year, we’ve already seen a 50 per cent increase of American clients on the same time last year,” says Harry Gladwin, head of the Cotswolds at the Buying Solution, a buying agency.

Some put their children into schools in Oxford and are not afraid to carry out often extensive refurbishments, unlike their British counterparts. “I recently helped US buyers purchase a manor house dating from the 1300s in the north Cotswolds and they are going through the process of bringing it back to life,” Gladwin says.

He points to the forthcoming £24 million development of a luxury Cotswolds holiday resort, Cabü, on the grounds of a former Marconi radio station in west Oxfordshire, as being a sign of the area’s enduring appeal. “They are increasingly drawn to the lifestyle ecosystem that developments like Langley, Soho Farmhouse, Daylesford and Estelle Manor provide.”

Of course, all this has driven up property prices in popular locales. According to Savills, prices in the Cotswolds prime market — which it categorises as being at £1.5 million or above — rose 3.9 per cent between March 2020 and December 2025, withstanding a post-Covid slump that hit vast swathes of the countryside market after the race for space ended. Plum Fenton, director at Savills’ country house department, says the market in the region had “continued to demonstrate remarkable resilience”.

Celebrities who bought into the area before the present influx are, naturally, pleased with the growing value of their assets. Among them is Amanda Holden, the actor and presenter, who has owned a house there for 20 years.

One striking insight is how many of the new Cotswold arrivals intend to base themselves permanently in Britain and are not simply buying or renting lock-up-and-leave properties to visit for a few weeks at a time, as many traditionally have in west London. Data from the estate agency Hamptons shows that, of the Americans who bought an investment property using a company last year, 43 per cent were based permanently in the UK.

Ben Holland, co-founder of the design studio HollandGreen, is in the middle of a project with an “American couple in the entertainment industry”, who are “selling up everything in the US and moving their three young children lock, stock and barrel to the UK”. The couple have already bought a place in Notting Hill and are looking for a home in the Cotswolds.

Their requirements are a decidedly odd transatlantic hybrid. “They want the character and heritage of an English manor house but also underfloor heating and Los Angeles-style comforts,” he says. This means an old-fashioned English look and feel but also higher ceilings and bigger windows as well as spas, gyms, excellent internet connectivity in beautiful English-style libraries, and a classic country garden — preferably with a fire pit. “They’re also very security-conscious and are fixated on gates and boundaries,” he adds.

To that end many Americans are baffled by the antiquated planning constraints governing listed buildings, which have recently been condemned by the Duke of Westminster. “They really struggle with that,” Holland says. “They say: ‘Why can’t we just have double-glazing?’”