When Harry and Meghan wanted quiet in 2018, they did not go to London and they did not go to America. They rented a house in Great Tew, in the Cotswolds, and seriously considered staying there for good. Now, with their return to Britain being talked about again, the same region is back on the list. The question is what is there that other places do not have.

The answer is fairly prosaic: honey-coloured stone, hills, and the ability to live entirely in plain sight without anyone turning up at your door. David and Victoria Beckham have a place there. So do Kate Moss and Ellen DeGeneres. But the Cotswolds needs none of those surnames to be worth the drive - the villages stood there for centuries before any of them.

A region you can only really see by car

The Cotswolds stretches across the counties of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Worcestershire and Somerset. Which means a driving tour is not a recommendation but the only way the thing makes sense. The back roads are part of the experience - they are what ties the villages together.

Broadway is a good starting point. The high street is a run of historic limestone houses, shops, galleries and restaurants, most of them built in the golden age of the wool trade. Broadway Tower, above the town, gives you a view over the whole area.

Stow-on-the-Wold and the ritual you do not skip

A few kilometres on is Stow-on-the-Wold, with an enormous central square that still tells you wool and livestock were traded here. This is where you drink a cream tea - tea with scones, jam and clotted cream. The village also keeps the old narrow lanes through which herds were driven on the great fair days.

Bourton-on-the-Water is split by the River Windrush, with a line of small stone bridges over it. They call it the Venice of the Cotswolds, which is an exaggeration even by English standards, but the place is lovely without the label. There is also a model of the village itself, built in the mid-twentieth century, with replicas of the streets and buildings.

The most photographed street in England

Arlington Row in Bibury is probably the most accurate picture of what the Cotswolds is: a row of small honey-coloured cottages with sloping roofs, originally built as homes for wool weavers. Today they are one of the most recognisable images of England and have appeared in countless films.

Chipping Campden continues along the same line - a high street of historic golden-stone houses and shops, some with old thatched roofs. Tetbury is a former wool town, now known for its antique dealers. Nearby is Highgrove, King Charles III's summer residence, whose gardens can be visited on set dates through organised tours. Castle Combe, in Wiltshire, is so untouched that it is regularly used as a filming location for period films and series.

Trails, palaces and pubs

The best of the Cotswolds is not in the villages but between them. The region has a dense network of paths through meadows, woods and hills. The Cotswold Way is the main long-distance trail cutting the region from north to south - but you do not have to walk all of it; most sections are built for an hour's stroll and a return to a village for lunch.

There is also Blenheim Palace near Woodstock, where Winston Churchill was born, and Sudeley Castle, linked to Catherine Parr, the last wife of Henry VIII. As for food, the rural pubs are a more serious business than it sounds - The Wild Rabbit in Kingham and The Kingham Plough work with local producers.

The route needs at least two nights. The Porch House in Stow-on-the-Wold and The Lygon Arms in Broadway are old inns turned into hotels. And here is the contrast with what we call tourism development: in the Cotswolds, the value is that nothing was torn down to build something new.