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Stow on the Wold

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    • TravelerLondon2023
      2
      Day 5

      Diddly Squat in the Cotswolds

      September 7, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

      Leaving London and the Phoenix Hotel at Kensington Square Gardens for the Cotswolds today. We piled into a Mini Cab (Uber) and headed back to Heathrow to pick up the hire car.

      We were lucky enough to get an upgrade, which we thought was great. To find out our upgrade was to an EV………… that means no internal combustion engine 😮. We hopped onto the M4 and off we went, quietly towards Stow On The Wold. We bypassed Oxford (we will explore it tomorrow possibly) and went on the B roads which took us through some beautiful little villages and towns on the way to Stow.

      We rolled into Stow about 2pm. Is such a pretty village with a huge open area that was once the market square selling hay, grains, livestock and other local produce. Its now a huge parking area for tourists and locals as there is no off street parking or very little.

      We are staying at Victoria House. It is a beautiful old 19th century former brewers house located on Sheep Street. As beautiful and full of history as these old places are, they are very uncomfortable to be in during an English heat wave, 34 deg today.

      We had a wander around Stow and looked in the shops and bakeries, even stopped for a cuppa. After our walk we went back to Victoria house to unpack before heading of on a drive to Chipping Norton for a laugh to see Clarksons Farm.

      It was a lovely drive through the tree lines back roads. We arrived at the Didley Squat Farm Shop but unfortunately Jeremy Clarkson wasn’t there.
      By the time we took off from the farm, we saw we needed to charge the car.

      Should be straight forward we thought……NOT. You would assume England would have this electric vehicle infrastructure sorted……WRONG. We have found it hard to find a charging station. They all charge the car at different electrical rates, and nowhere provides free charging. We had to leave the car at the Tesco’s on their charging station for hours. Dan and David went back after dinner to get it, luckily Tesco’s shuts at 11pm.

      Been another big day, looking forward to more exploring of the Cot Coty Cotswolds!      Read more

    • TravelerUK and Ireland
      Day 8

      Stow-on-the-Wold + Bourton-on-the-Water

      April 4, 2023 in England ⋅ ☀️ 52 °F

      More Cotswolds. Bourton is a lot more touristy than any of the other Cotswold villages I've visited so far, but can't deny it's gorgeous so I guess I can see why lol. Found another neat old door in Stow! This one inspired the door to Moria in LOTR (Tolkien famously hiked the Cotswolds).Read more

    • TravelerBack to the UK
      11
      Day 11

      Stow-on-the-Wold, Cotswolds

      July 7, 2023 in England ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

      Jenny and I last visited Stow-on-the-Wold in early 2019. We went back today primarily to go inside St. Edward's Church, which was closed on the day of our last visit. Unfortunately, we arrived today to find a private memorial service underway and our entry naturally barred. When we returned after lunch, the Church was closed for cleaning...must have been a messy service!Read more

    • TravelerGreat Britain
      Day 6

      Avebury, Bleinheim, Stow-on-the-Wold

      May 4, 2022 in England ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F

      On the way to the Cotswolds we made several side trips. The first was a look at the tiny village of Lacock. Next, we visited the village of Avebury and took a walking tour of three mysterious prehistoric stone circles.

      On our drive we spotted two white horses in the hillsides that were made from cutting deep into a hillside, creating large trenches up to 3 feet deep of chalk, a soft and white form of limestone. These date back as far as the early 1700s and one dates from 1380 BC to 550 BC. There are others in England including ones of human figures. I thought it was cool. They show up from great distances.

      Spring is alive here, and I’ve seen lots of very deep purple lilacs, wisteria all over houses and buildings, bluebells everywhere, peonies and ornamental trees in profuse blooms. We have seen many bright yellow fields of rapeseed. It’s what we call canola. They have strange names for things…rocket is arugula, crisps are what we call chips, chips are French fries, a pavement is a sidewalk, a flannel is a washcloth, a public school is a private school and a state school is a public school! I could go on and on and let me tell you, it gets confusing!

      Then we drove to Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill. Queen Anne made John Churchill the first Duke of Marlborough, gave him the land, and helped him finance the palace back in the early 1700s because he won some big battle for England. It’s been in the Churchill/Spenser (as in Princess Diana Spencer) family for over 300 years. It’s still the home of the dukes of Marlborough. We toured the gardens in the rain!

      We are staying at the Sheep on Sheep Street in the charming town of Stow-on-the-Wold in the Cotswolds. It dates to pre-Roman times and the location was a place for medieval sheep markets where sheep and wool trade was a thriving business.      Read more

    • TravelerGreat Britain
      13
      Day 7

      Stow-on-the-Wold Cotswolds

      May 5, 2022 in England ⋅ ☁️ 57 °F

      It’s perfect weather today and will be clear skies and in the mid 60’s. We’ve been quite lucky so far in England with only a few intermittent rains.

       We learned that the environment changes so does the stone used for building. You can easily tell the change from the colors of the stones. Even the Cotswold walls and roofs are made of the local limestone and the roofs tiles hang by pegs! The area we’ve been traveling through is beautiful and green with lots of hills and valleys dotted with sheep. Another observation is just how friendly and “ever-so-polite” everyone has been in England.

      Today we started with a very scenic Cotswold drive and visited an English village where we toured the Stanway Manor and Mill. It has only changed owners once. It was owned by an abbey for 800 years and for the last 500 years and still today it is owned by the Tracy family and their descendants. The Earl of Wemyss lives there now. Not much has changed, and the interior could be described as very shabby and messy. Some furniture, tapestries, and portraits have been there for centuries, but the couches were literally falling apart! Strange story…his wife believes in drilling a hole in the head to give it more space. Still happening now! Oh, an ancestor was accused of heresy. But he had been dead for 2 years, so they dug him up and burned him. So many stories could be shared! We had a spectacular fountain show when they turned on a gravity- set fountain that is the tallest in Britain. We also toured the watermill and saw wheat turned to flour.

      We actually had a lesson in cricket at Stanway House. I can’t say that I understood the game, but it was a jolly good time!

      Legend says that Tolkien visited St Edward’s Church in this village, and the mystical doorway there looks like a portal that could transport you to another realm.

      Rebecca, Wendy and I had lunch at Huffkin’s Tearoom and then we joined our guide for a country walk to the Upper and Lower Slaughter. To quote him, we walked past thatched cottages, sheep, a mill creek and through fields and kissing gates.

      We gathered for dinner at The Kings Arms (dating from1600s) where we also listened to local folk musicians…very enjoyable evening.      Read more

    • TravelerLondon2023
      Day 6

      Just Popping to the Palace

      September 8, 2023 in England ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

      This morning David and I went to a little cafe in Talbot Court. It is a cute little area full of small shops and eateries. We had a coffee and the most amazing cinnamon bun. Might need another one tomorrow perhaps???

      Today was a little drive to visit the Cotswold Motor Museum. It in the lovely little village of Cheltenham . It's such a tiny village, so small we couldn't get parking long enough to spend any time at the museum, so we missed out on seeing it.

      That was OK because we went to Blenheim Palace in Woodstock instead not to far away- just as long as we had enough electricity in the car to get there!

      Blenheim is a huge pile owned by the Duke of Marlborough. He lives in Woodstock but often entertains at Blenheim.

      Winston Churchill was born there and he has ties to the Palace through family.
      We got to see the State Rooms, the room where Winny was born, the Churchill exhibition and did a separate tour of the downstairs servants area and the upstairs private living area of the Duke.

      As it is still in use by the owners, the private areas (being the upstairs and downstairs) we were not allowed to take any photos. The State Rooms allowed photography so we have plenty of those to share. We spent over 4 hours looking around, it was so huge and very well looked after.

      From Blenheim Palace we made our way home in the late arvo and stopped at the Big Bell pub. We had a few drinks and a yummy pub dinner in the cooler evening.

      We are having alot of issues with the internet here in Stow, it is making it hard to call each other as we are only using Whats App. But hey, life could be much worse.

      Tomorrow we check out of Victoria House and spend Saturday night at MacDonald Alviston Manner. That will be a nice experience, can't wait to stay in manor house.

      Maegan and Enzo arrive in London tomorrow so will see them when we get back to London on Sunday and commence our stay in the Putney apartment together.

      That's our Friday. See you all Saturday.      Read more

    • TravelerWir erkunden England 🤩
      Day 24

      Stow-on-the-Wold und der kleine Brum

      October 3, 2023 in England ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

      03./04.10.2023: Wir haben uns in Stow-on-the-Wold die St Edwards Church mit dem tollen Nordtor angeschaut, welches von zwei Eiben umrahmt wird. Dort gab es auch uralte Grabsteine zu entdecken. Weiter ging es dann nach Bourton-on-the-Water zu einem privaten Automuseum. Hier gab es nicht nur tolle Oldtimer sondern auch überall andere spannende Dinge zu entdecken. Unter anderem das originale kleine, gelbe Auto „Brum“ aus der gleichnamigen Kinderserie. Diese wurde teilweise auch in dem Museum gedreht. Ich kannte die Serie zwar nicht, aber lief Anfang 2000 in Deutschland. Das war wirklich eine beeindruckende Sammlung.Read more

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