3 days in the English countryside

Rye sounds as though it is made for you! A gorgeous old town perched on the hill, with great walks down to the coast through Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. Nearby drives to Winchelsea and Dungeness, the latter technically being the only desert in the UK! Take the steam railway from Dungeness to Hythe for the day and walk round the quaint high street and look at the model railway exhibition. Visit Sissinghurst Gardens, which should be at their best then. Two other National Trust properties worth visiting in this area are Bodiam Castle and Batemans, the former home of the Jungle Book author Rudyard Kipling.

Good walks on the South Downs and plenty of quaint villages with pubs and tea shops.

You may want to get a train to somewhere such as Hastings and then hire a car, rather than spend hours in central London trying to get out!

The village of Alfriston in East Sussex.
Natural beauty of the Sussex Weald, Cuckmere Valley and the (collapsing) White Cliffs at Beachy Head.
Tunbridge Wells, Brighton and Eastbourne are close by for train access from London and possible hire car locations.
Don't miss checking out the National Trust's first property, Alfriston Clergy House, which has a gorgeous little garden.

It needs to be fairly close to London so that we don't spend too much time driving.

Are you intending to drive in and out of London? Are you experienced in driving in London?

Have you considered Avebury in Wiltshire? It's west of Newbury on the road to Bath and is famous for its large stone circle -- bigger than Stonehenge and intertwined with the village. There are other sights and points of interest in and around Avebury, and the main pub, the Red Lion, is friendly and affordable.

I truly appreciate every response. What a wonderful site! I am exploring your suggestions one by one, but so far, I am enamored with pictures Dorset, which was mentioned on another post. Rye looks nice as well and Alfriston is certainly a contender.Please keep the sugguestion coming!

As for the question about driving, I've driven in Dublin, but never London. There's a first time for everything :). If is is faster to take the train out of London and then rent a car later, I would be up for that.

One thing that surprised me was the cooler temperatures of England in June vs. the US in the mid-south, where I live. 13-21 C (56-70 F) is what the temperature is estimated to be. 70F would be nice and warm, but 56 definitely feels chilly to me. This will make packing lightly difficult.

Suffolk was one of the recommendations. I realized that I shouldn't have used the word "town". We are really looking for a little village. Suffolk looks a bit too large for what we're looking for.

In England you can't guarantee warm weather even in mid summer. You may get a warm spell (mid 20s), but you are more LIKELY to experience a cool spell (mid teens), as we did in July 2011. Hence the 21c average, which for us in Brisbane is the mid winter maximum average.

I have been to Rye and agree that it's a really nice stop. It's a small town but you might not feel like you are in the countryside exactly. If you really want out in the country the village of Wilcote near Stratford-upon-Avon is really a tiny town. When we were there in 2000 there were actual livestock behind fences between our B&B and the local pub. If the weather is good you can walk to Stratford, too.

Don't count on weather.

Every year is different.

In the past few years we have had spring floods, the year of storms (last year), the year of wind, and this year I called Noah's Ark year because of the continuous rain.

Summer didn't come until the second week of July, since when we have been warm twice.

Today is the beginning of the second week of August and at noon it is 17 degrees C, with a high expected of 20 or 21. Tonight campers are warned of very cold temps overnight, 8 in the south and 3 in the north.

Next year - who knows? I certainly don't, nor does anybody probably.

It has been about 5 years since continuous dry weather caused a hose-pipe ban.

Don't drive into London. It isn't fun. This is from somebody who has driven in Paris and Rome, and who regularly has to drive into the City - has to because a train can't get me there for dawn on Sundays. I know the way, I know where to park, I only go in on Sundays, and I still get caught in traffic once the city wakes up.

If you don't know the way, and trivia such as the borough of Islington has a posted maximum speed limit of 20, and you don't understand CPZs (who does? not all of them), the meaning of single and double yellow lines, red lines and box junctions, and if you don't have both unlimited patience and deep pockets for parking (think £4 per 30 minutes deep pockets) - Stay Away.

There will be plenty of trains to whisk you to and fro, you won't have to park (or find that elusive parking space - although if you choose to not take this advice I can point you to a few apps which may help locate one), and you won't have to deal with London traffic which moves slower than it did before the First World War.

Devon and Dorset both have lovely villages. Think of somewhere, perhaps, near the River Dart. If you are a fan of Agatha Christie you can visit her home by car (beware the exceedingly narrow lanes), 1930s vintage bus, or boat up the river. And sit in her living room in one of her own chairs.

I'd pitch Amersham as a potential base - it's a moderate-sized commuter town and for the most part is modern and anonymous, but it has good facilities & the underground connection to london, and has 2 aspects which make it worth consideration. First, stay down in the old town. Apart from the big Tesco, which is actually blended in quite well, the old high street consists of mostly C17/C18 buildings, though some go back to C15. Amersham also has the advantage of being quite central in the Chilterns, but if it doesn't appeal, Berkhamstead (on the line to Milton Keynes and 30 mins from the Ash Ridge estate), Princes Risborough (on the Aylesbury line, on the edge of the plain) or Stokenchurch (near the M40 a short drive from Aston Rowant nature reserve) are all places that make exploring the hills and villages easy. There's even a steam railway along the foot of the scarp at Chinnor if you want a change of pace.
The Chilterns are an AONB which means development is controlled and most of the small hamlets and villages are chock full of living history. Coleshill, Little Missenden, Speen, Lacey Green, Bryants Bottom, Cadmore End, Bledlow Ridge, Radnage - you can't throw a brick without hitting a listed building 'round here. Hughenden Manor and Dashwood House are both just a few miles away, if stately homes are your thing. The former was the residence of Disraeli, the latter the estate of the notorious Dashwoods and the base of the Hellfire Club - the caves are under the village church in West Wycombe. Marlow, down on the river, is justifiably regarded as one of the postcard towns of England - little side note, the bridge was the scale model for the one built over the Danube between Buda and Pest - and Hambleden is another village where time stopped in the early C16. Pop over the river and, if you book now, you could eat at the Fat Duck. Myself, my budget is more "How much? Bloomin'eck" than Heston Blumenthal, but the Firecrest near Wendover does decent food at a fair price - the sunday lunch particularly. Good beer is easy to find - my local brewery (Rebellion, near marlow) does excellent beer and the shop is chock full of top quality low-volume-production stuff - wines, ciders, sausage rolls and so on from local farms. You can sample a couple of pints free (though have a designated driver!) and lots of people gather there on sunny weekends like a pub garden. Most of the pubs in the villages nearby carry Rebellion beers. Also, have a look at the Royal Standard in Forty Green, just outside beaconsfield - they do Windsor and Eton beers which are also good, and a decent sunday roast, and has been a freehouse for 900-odd years, though the current building is somewhat newer (Tudor era).
As you suggest you don't want to do lots of driving, nor visit museums, I might hazard a guess that you want to walk through the countryside? There are several 100's of miles of paths, bridleways and RUPPs in the chilterns that cover everything from a post-lunch 2 mile loop out from the Standard, to the Ridgeway, a national trail which runs around 90 miles from Avebury to Ivinghoe Beacon. Almost every hill has a nice view but the very best viewing points are from the Beacon, Aston Rowant, or (my mums favourite) Coombe Hill. That ridge overlooks Chequers (the PM's country residence) and on a clear crisp day, when there's no heat haze, you can just make out the tops of the Cotswolds on the west side of the Oxfordshire plain. A place I like going - the church on top of the hill at West Wycombe opens the belltower to visitors, for a small fee (£2 I think it is now), after Sunday services. It's a bit of a climb up narrow stairs but the view from beside the spire is well worth it.
Oh, and Red Kites everywhere; they like burnt sausages, semi-raw chicken drums, and bacon scraps so naturally gravitate to my garden bbq.
Hope that lot gives you some alternatives to the Usual Suspects (cotswolds etc); visitchilterns.co.uk is a good source of info if you need more.