Go-slow Le Perche

The Perche region's concentration of antique dealers, vintage markets and weekend sales is chicken-and-egg to a certain proportion of second-homers: Parisians who visit once are forever smitten by a gracious townhouse, a modest château, their turrets and tumbledown barns protected by another green fold in the field or forest. The ones who weekend here, and those who settle in and open a restaurant or join the thriving antiques trade are drawn by the region's old-school allure and simplicity, paired with undeniable chic appeal.

'People from big cities have a very specific, romantic ideal of being in the countryside,' says Sofie Sleumer. 'What we offer is really very simple: we concentrate on beautiful produce, good food, fine wines. Parisians and Londoners feel at home here because we still have an urban sensibility, yet they can drop everything, go into the woods, gather mushrooms, pick up branches. In the country you want to taste and feel everything.'

Drenching in the shower in the newest suite at d'Une Ile, I look out via a cunning porthole into the dense woods that enclose the property to the north like a collar. This is suite number seven, somewhat Japanese in feel, with bed and bathtub set into the newly laid oak floor on two levels, bathroom divided off with soft-focus glass, and man-sized old beams where Sofie has put jars of wild flowers. All the rooms have little vintage suitcase record players and a pile of 12-inch records: Charles Aznavour, Kate Bush, Michael Jackson.

Michel chops wood in the barn for the open fire in the breakfast room, where a narrow stone trough the length of the space is filled with great heads of salad, leeks, potatoes, a pineapple… Supper means big plates of home-cooked food, served outdoors in summer, with d'Une Ile's pair of country cats winding around the table legs. Skate with caper beurre blanc comes with a skordalia dip, lightly pickled cauliflower and rocket. Michel brings a glass of honeyed Chenin Blanc; the more enthusiasm you demonstrate for an esoteric, uncommercial Cornas or Viré-Clessé the more delighted he becomes.

Famous for its orchards, not its vineyards, Le Perche nonetheless has pockets of intense interest for wine lovers. The lone shop in Villeray, an absurdly pretty village a 10-minute drive from Rémalard, with mill stream, steeply stacked stone cottages (mostly maisons secondaires) and a spa hotel, is In Vino Veritas, where Roland Sambor stocks low-sulphite wines from independent producers, as well as rarities from elite wineries such as Clos Rougeard in the Loire.

In Mortagne-au-Perche, the market-town capital of the region, Basque-born Philippe Ribaut presides over deli/cave à manger La Vie en Rouge, where Saturday lunch around the communal table might mean Spanish Zallo sardines or Christian Parra black pudding with a salad of butterhead lettuce, and bread made to a medieval recipe from the Moulin de la Peletterie, with a glass of Corsican white from Antoine Aréna. Many of Philippe's local clientele have become his friends, and the atmosphere is homely and genial, amid antique wood panelling and walls clad in deep-red fabric. There's no kitchen, hence his menu of fine charcuterie and top-drawer belly tuna from a tin. The shelves are stacked with cult products, including Mauro Vergano vermouth, Cédric Casanova olive oils and Maldon sea salt. Ask to try something made nearby, and Philippe will fetch you a bottle of Paulmier cider from Montreuil-la-Cambe.

In the centre of Mortagne, the market stallholders are packing away their striped awnings beneath the massive Nôtre-Dame church, rebuilt during the 15th century. There are half a dozen antique shops to browse here; outside one of them, the cowboy-hatted owner and three of his friends have brought out a table to share bread and wine in the sunshine, smoke wafting from a sweet-smelling pipe.

In Stéphanie Mayeux's assiduously curated boutique, with Retford coal sacks underfoot, you can pick up a pair of Italianate French paintings from the early 19th century for £300. Frank Traisnel's Heritage et Cie is slightly more frivolous, with scented candles and some witty 20th-century finds such as a 1930s Venetian mirror or a 1920s oil painting of a dapper, dark-suited mystery man. The place is frequented by Parisians in search of crystal glasses for their weekend pads. Mortagne itself is crammed with fascinating relics too, from its medieval gatehouse to its fine 16th- and 18th-century townhouses.

'We have a calm way of life here. Farming is important, and we maintain traditions and our links with the past,' says Laurent Loingtier, chef and owner of Maison d'Horbé in La Perrière, one of the prettiest of Le Perche's villages. He believes that's what Parisian incomers are in search of: 'It's a quality of life you don't find in big cities. The architecture is attractive - there are so many manoirs. And, from a cooking point of view, there are plenty of organic farms; you can find good products.'

The kitchen at Maison d'Horbé, through which guests enter the dining room, is like a Patience Gray cookbook come to life, with its huge range, copper pans, jelly moulds, tea caddies and, beneath polished bell jars, home-made almond cakes, mendiants and chocolate-dipped orange peel. Laurent and his team make and sell 2,000 jars of jam and marmalade a year, as well as tarte Normande (with custard and Calvados) and, for lunch, ris de veau aux morilles, or fillet of sole with incredible tarragon butter sauce. As I leave the orderly warmth of Maison d'Horbé, I spot Laurent and sommelier Robert heading away in civvies, up the hill towards the church. 'Time for Sunday choir practice!' They never miss it. I follow after five minutes to look out from the churchyard over the intensely green landscape, then walk back down into La Perrière via a path at the rear of the houses, strewn with hollyhocks and white roses. The lanes that lead out of the village are either flanked by vigorously healthy cornfields or the titanic hedgerows that mean you're at the edge of the woods.

'Percherons are country people, with respect for nature,' explain Josiane and Joël Lenoir, owners of the graceful townhouse chambre d'hôtes Hôtel de Suhard in Bellême, a handsome, historic town that's home to a dozen antique dealers. 'We still have a real culture: not just our heritage, but the way we live, farm, eat and enjoy ourselves.' He is a native of the region, and generous with his knowledge of Le Perche's medieval status as a prosperous checkpoint between English-occupied Normandy and the rest of northern France, of Bellême's notable architecture, and of the placid, mighty breed of Percheron horses - still alive and well and working at Disneyland Paris.

In my room, at the top of a sensational 17th-century staircase, Josiane has offset Suhard's noble proportions with Indian pots and vases, Kenzo textiles, and a bed worthy of a palace hotel. A first-floor suite with 18th-century leanings - the striped drapes are from Marché St-Pierre in Paris - is named after Mme du Suhard herself, who took the deeply unconventional step of divorcing her chevalier husband during the French Revolution in order to safeguard the house. It has always been passed down via the female line, and has been sold only four times since the 16th century.

'I wanted to make a real maison de famille,' says Josiane. 'The kind you dream about when you are a child.' A mixture of reverence for the building - savvy historic references and natural-pigment paints - with objects and ideas from the Lenoirs' antique dealer friends makes Suhard dreamy rather than museum-like.

A circuit of the fine antique shops in Bellême should include the world-class, elegantly sinister Maison Fassier and, opposite, Jean-Luc Gonsard's Métamorphoses, a quirky little universe in which Delicatessen meets Monsieur Hulot. Christiane Delvincourt, the effervescent owner of Broc'hanteuses, with a fondness for 1950s furniture, old Louis Vuitton trunks and vintage jazz, opens her store up for aperitifs on Thursday evenings. An ex-City trader, she used to deal in mid-century antiques in Paris. 'I never knew this region,' she says. 'One day I came to visit an antiques trader here, and fell in love with it.'

The Parisians who become hooked on Le Perche must be keeping quiet about it: it's as undiscovered as the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire, yet it's only an hour by train from Paris Montparnasse. The beautiful seigneurial manor houses, some of them redeployed as farms after the Revolution, are catnip to city escapees. But the French Cotswolds this is not. As I leave Paris on my way there, I consult the concierge of a grand hotel about my rural adventure. His face lights up: he is from Normandy; he will tell me everything. But when I show him my itinerary on a map, it's all over. No idea. Le Perche is still something of a secret.

Where to stay

D'une Ile, Remalard

A cluster of Hansel-and-Gretel-type houses in the woods, with room for 28 in cottages and suites. Good for couples, young families, groups of friends - and cat and wine lovers. +33 2 33 83 01 47

Website: www.duneile.com Price: doubles from about £70

Hôtel de Suhard, Bellême

An elegant family-run townhouse, decorated with one eye on luxe and one on the 18th century - it's like London's Geffrye Museum with silk-cotton sheets and excellent breakfast. The erudite owners and their library are worth consulting about the region and its houses. +33 2 33 83 53 47; www.hotel-de-suhard.fr. Doubles from about £60, including breakfast

Where to eat

Maison d'Horbé, La Perrière

Excellent service and flawless bourgeois cooking in an old-world interior, with a little brocante of its own. Book for Sunday lunch; don't miss the chestnut cake. Grande Place (+33 2 33 73 18 41). About £65 for two

La Vie en Rouge, Mortagne-au-Perche

An irresistibly laidback lunch spot serving natural wines and elite artisan snacks, dished up by the oenophile patron at a communal table. 31 rue Ste-Croix (+33 9 66 13 18 20). About £35 for two

A la Dînette Normande, Bellême

The room may be unmemorable but the service is kindly, and you'll eat accomplished traditional dishes such as beef carpaccio and tarte fine of scallop and black pudding. Place du Géneral Leclerc (+33 2 33 25 99 32). About £35 for two

Where to shop

MMXI, Bellême

Valérie Smilenko worked in the Paris flea markets before coming to Le Perche to comb its auctions and fairs for classical and 20th-century antiques. 41 rue Ville Close (+33 6 81 25 61 78)

La Conserverie, Bellême

A dandy selection of animal-themed antiques, art, taxidermy and entomology: ludic Michel Lablais watercolours and drawings on vintage handkerchiefs by activist-artist Marjolaine Dégremont. 5 rue Ville Close (+33 6 60 49 35 61)

Brocante RN 23, near Nogent-le-Rotrou

An Aladdin's cave of house-clearance treasure, from lovely tarnished mirrors to jolly 1940s toys and games. On the Chartres road (+33 6 84 28 84 59)

Broc'Izzy, near Nogent-le-Rotrou

A hangar-like centre for 15 dealers, with some fine Art Deco and 18th-century furniture, as well as vintage suitcases, glassware and statuary. Zone Artisanale du Chêne Vert, RN 23 (+33 6 22 87 19 71)