Property: Three To View - Homes With The `Ahhh' Factor

BUTTERFLY COTTAGE, in the Warwickshire village of Long Marston, seven miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, scarcely has a straight line anywhere in its 300-year-old frame. The Grade II listed thatched house has been extended with a sensitively designed octagonal conservatory, which at 6ft 9ins in span doesn't dwarf the rest of the building. The cottage looks tiny, but has a 14ft 6ins by 7ft 9ins kitchen, two staircases to the first floor and a 16ft 9ins sitting room with ingle-nook fireplace and a study area. Upstairs there are three bedrooms. Outside there is a utility outbuilding, cottage gardens and garage. Offers around pounds 175,000 to Knight Frank (01789 297735).

WISTERIA FRAMES the shuttered windows of Forge Lane House like a handlebar moustache. The four-bedroom house at Whitfield, three miles from Dover, is early Victorian with sash windows, partly walled gardens and with a brick and flint coach house. The 21ft drawing room overlooks secluded gardens and has built-in bookshelves with mahogany top and a picture rail. There's a study and playroom in the basement. The coach house and stable still has the old manger and brick floor. Priced at pounds 170,000 through GW Finn & Sons (01304 612147).

THE COTTAGE is too modest a name for this small country house with Gothic arched windows at Little Sodbury, eight miles from Bath. The elegantly decorated three-bedroom, three-bathroom stone-built house overlooks 11 acres of paddocks and grounds and the countryside beyond. It has a 27ft 7ins drawing room with French windows to the garden, an even bigger dining hall and 12ft kitchen and a walk-in pantry. The price is pounds 395,000, through Lane Fox (01285 653101).