In a churchyard, about 100 miles west of London, the rain drives at a 45-degree slant, pounding the stone footpath so hard it bounces back as white fuzz that hovers just below the ankle.
St Mary’s Church is the 14th-century nucleus of Painswick, a town in the Cotswolds, a region in southwest England famed for its hills and honey-colored cottages. It is a chunk of that Jane Austen-esque, close-to-cloyingly twee England that has long attracted tourists and homebuyers — sometimes despite the weather.
Lately, though, local real estate agents told CNN, increasing numbers of Americans are calling it home.
According to those agents, some want their children to attend prestigious British schools and universities; others seek a bucolic, slower pace of life. Some feel pushed to leave the United States by the threat of wildfires or gun violence, or by political changes they oppose. Most are incredibly wealthy.
“I have this funny feeling,” Frances Shultz, a 60-something North Carolinian who bought a Cotswolds cottage in 2023, told CNN, “of being sort of dropped in the middle of a TV series, a very wholesome, sweet BBC one.”
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