The Cotswolds

Wow, this is a beautiful area, even in the thirty-plus heat we have experienced since arriving.

We’ve navigated the length and breadth of this designated Area of Natural Beauty by every manner of road from manic freeways to single-lane goat tracks.

The motor car is by far the preferred means of travel here, and it is lucky many of these villages have a historic market square that they can fill up with cars, to allow the tourists to have their cream teas and check out the boutiques. They would actually look nicer as pedestrian plazas, but that’s just an opinion.

A few highlights.

Castle Combe, probably the jewel in the Cotswolds crown. We visited early, before the crowds, and found a very quiet but stunningly beautiful place. The bridge over the By Brook has featured in so many pictorials it is now retired on the royalties.

Stow-on-the-Wold (gee, these hyphenated names are annoying to type) was also very nice, the Yew Tree Door of St Edward’s Church very photogenic and possibly inspirational for JRR Tolkien. Besides, you could see it from the pub next door where we had a fantastic dinner with our friends Ron and Kim.

Chipping Campden. Hardly a hidden gem, but a bit more unpretentious than some of the others; the National Trust-owned Market Hall and the nearby Town Hall look wonderful.

Bibury is famous, mainly, for Arlington Row, an isolated row of National Trust-owned cottages that attract - or at least they did when we were there - hundreds of visitors each summer day. Even, so, it was well worth a look.

We also visited Burford, Broadway (sort of the Berry of the Cotswolds) and Sudely Castle, which had magnificent gardens and a great story to tell, from Catherine Parr - last wife of Henry VIII and buried at the castle - to the inevitable rise of the death duties spectre and the opening of the doors to mere (but cashed up) commoners like us.

Oh, and we visited Blockley. Well known as the filming location for the Father Brown series, we popped in to have a look at the Church of St Peter and St Paul where it all happens. But we couldn’t… because they were filming Father Brown and there was no access permitted.Read more