Property: Escapists join the idyll home expedition: From chic cottages to derelict barns, country living is tempting more nad more townies, says Anne Spackman

This is, explained Sue Bradley Hudson as we approached a pretty brick cottage in the Somerset village of Horsington, what they call a 'splat' house. 'You know, stripped pine, Laura-Ashley-type. It's been done very well.'

We climbed out of the Range Rover, laid on to get us in the mood, and walked through the rustic gateway into Belinda and Paul Mann's cottage. The Rayburn was pumping out heat on a bitter April day. A stream flowed between the paddock and the garden, where two rope swings hung from a tree. This was it: country living, just as you've seen it in the magazines.

We had just come down from Pitcombe Barn, a timber cavern sitting on top of windswept hills overlooking Stourhead Woods. For pounds 110,000, the same price as the 'splat' house, you get a shell with planning permission, a negotiable amount of land and complete isolation. This is the other side of the country dream.

The temptation to move to the country, in its manicured or rough form, is a strong one among the British. It is catching on with the French, too.

Where previously an empty cottage in the Dordogne was likely to go to an English buyer, now it is more likely to be snapped up by someone from Paris. It's not just that the English haven't got the cash. It seems that city-dwellers everywhere are willing to pay for some peace and quiet. And as this is largely a middle-class trend, it can command quite a price.

What the escapists have in common is a picture of the kind of house they want to buy and the kind of lifestyle they want to enjoy. They tend to care far less about precisely where it is. With estate agents traditionally location-based, buyers face a long slog around the country to find the right property.

So, instead, some had come to Somerset for a weekend organised by Bradley Hudsons estate agents, based in Castle Cary, and In the Sticks, a newspaper set up specifically to meet this need.

The paper advertises country properties all over Britain, from the pounds 10,000 Highland bothy to the pounds 300,000 converted water mill. Agents and private sellers pay to advertise in it, and house-hunters subscribe to it or, occasionally, find it in their newsagent's.

One local woman was looking for a house for her son and daughter-in- law, currently living in London but planning to move to the country when their first baby is born. She thought the perception of life in the country lacked certain elements of reality, such as the cold, the rain and the mud. Whatever they bought, she reckoned they would keep a base in London. It was just a question of which would became the second home.

The Boultby family was at the opposite end of the spectrum. Glenn Boultby didn't mind what state the house was in as long as he had plenty of land to grow vegetables, keep bantams and house his daughter's pony. 'I'm not a roses-round-the-door type,' he said. 'I'd like an old place to do up. I wouldn't even care if it didn't have a bathroom.

'We've looked at a few places in Wales - some of them we never even found - but we don't really mind where we go. It just depends if we see something that is right.'

In The Sticks is one of many businesses spawned by this trend. Pavilions of Splendour is another, an agent selling unusual country property nationwide, with a slightly more architectural focus.

At the greener end comes the Ecology Building Society, offering mortgages on environmentally- sound properties, and The Smallholder magazine. In its 'properties wanted' section, most customers are looking for a small house and anything from two to 50 acres, initially to rent, with a view to buying later. The most sought-after location is 'anywhere'.

Most of the house-hunters who walk into Bradley Hudsons are from London and its commuter belt. They are looking for a change of lifestyle as much as a new house. Mrs Bradley Hudson asks them about their priorities. Do they want to be in a village or isolated? Do they want land, and if so, for what?

Many buyers have not examined their requirements so rationally. They gaze wistfully into space, conjuring up the image of their dream home. The estate agents have to point out that here, as in town, they will need to make compromises.

Many customers have taken early retirement or are trading down from their family house. Mrs Bradley Hudson had just sold a cottage to a retired policeman from Surrey for a little under pounds 70,000. It needed everything doing to it, including the rebuilding of the front wall.

She had also sold a house to a couple of teachers who had come down from London with their first baby. 'Teachers in an area like this are quite well-off,' Mrs Bradley Hudson said. 'In London they had a small flat, but here they can buy a house.'

She used to get what she affectionately refers to as 'barmy goat ladies', women in long skirts and battered hats looking for a life on the land. Now they are seeing an influx of lawyers and media people, who work from home on their computers and travel up to town on the 90- minute service to Paddington once or twice a week. A tele-cottage providing such services as a fax machine has opened in Castle Cary.

But it is not all newcomers. Anna and Ron Bissell were looking for a house with room for her parents within in striking distance of Bristol. They came with their eyes wide open.

'People don't seem to realise it, but Somerset farmhouses are often in a dreadful state,' said Mrs Bissell, 'and the keepers' cottages which some people go after are often so remote there is no road. We are looking for something with an annexe or some outbuildings to convert in a nice village.'

Jane and Keith Jones had moved out of Yeovil to Glastonbury because it was quieter. Now they wanted somewhere quieter still, preferably with plenty of fields around. They were the only people prepared to consider new properties.

'We are willing to consider anything,' said Jane, 35. 'We've looked at a bungalow and at a large country house divided into apartments. We want something with a bit of space around it, but we are keeping our options open.'

That sort of attitude almost merits a preservation order in today's country property market.

Bradley Hudsons, 0963 351565; In the Sticks, 0434 381404; Pavilions of Splendour, 081-348 1234; Ecology Building Society, 0535 635933; The Smallholder, 0366 501035.

(Photograph omitted)