Period family home near Oxford for rental/exchange over 2024-25 school year

Description

We are a Franco-British family of 4 (2 parents and 2 boys aged 9 and 7) based near Oxford, and looking to rent or exchange our home while we spend the 2024/25 academic/school year in or near Grenoble, France. We would also consider Toulouse or Geneva as alternative destinations. Our home is a beautiful, stone-built, partly thatched cottage, parts of which date back to the 18th century. Downstairs consists of an entrance hall, large kitchen, dining room, sitting room with woodburner, bathroom and guest bedroom, and a small veranda currently used as a workshop. Upstairs are 3 bedrooms (a master bedroom and 2 children's bedrooms with built-in raised beds), an additional guest room / home office, 2 bathrooms and an open plan area currently used as a children's play room. The rear garden is large (1/4 acre), built up in terraces, and contains mature fruit trees and shrubs, flower beds, raised beds for vegetables, two sheds and children's play equipment (swings, slide, and large sandpit). Although we don't have any pets ourselves, we are open to tenants who would bring well behaved pets with them. The house is located a friendly, charming village on the edge of the Otmoor bird reserve, over which there are beautiful views from the house and garden. The village has a good primary school less than 100m away, a community-owned pub, a park / playground and village hall, and a regular bus service into Oxford, which can also be reached by bicycle in around 35 min (5.5 miles). The nearest train station, 4 miles away, has frequent trains to London (in about 1h). The nearest secondary school is in Wheatley, 4 miles away, and is served by a school bus. We have excellent fibre ethernet and WiFi throughout the house and working from home is a definite possibility. All the ground floor and parts of the garden (including the patio and raised sitting area in the middle of the garden) are wheelchair accessible. We are open to negociation about the cost of utilities, including services like cleaning and gardening, and including access to our car and/or bicycles in any exchange agreement.