There are those things for sure, when we were growing up we could see this from my brother's bedroom window.
You got yer thatched roof cottages, picturesque villages and cosy pubs... absolutely completely fuck all to do for days on end. As a teenager I would have to beg dad to get a lift into the mighty metropolis of Wantage just so I didn't go completely out of my mind. These villages are lovely to retire to if you can afford a nice house and you have a car so you can get to the shops for supplies etc but for a teenager or any other person who likes to do stuff it's a living death.
Also, as Ollie says, a lot of these places now have these expensive gastopubs which serve duck breast and souped up roasts with lists of trimmings that go on for ages.
Um, is good for walks in the country I guess, playing golf. Oxford is full of wankers but I don't mind it, it looks pretty and has a variety of food, certainly used to have lots of pleasant pubs, botanical gardens and punting in summer - and best of all it has a very regular and convenient all-night coach service to London.
Put it this way, where I grew up was pretty much midway between two towns and you sort of had a choice as to which one to affiliate yourself to for your weekly food shop, entertainment, football team etc and to me Oxford was hugely preferable to Swindon.