A visit to the Cotswolds
I wrote this blog after my first visit to England. Many of the sights mentioned here wind up in my books, sometimes with different names. Can you pick them out?
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I don’t know why, but when I dreamed of visiting England,
the Cotswolds were always a must-see. With that goal I mind, we spent six
nights in a quintessential Cotswold B&B, where Alan, the owner anticipated
our every need.
The Fieldways Inn in Cold Aston—with its conservatory, garden, sheep, friendly donkeys Martha and Dylan, and Paddington the cat—was the perfect setting for unwinding after a train ride from Dartmouth. Our dinner the first night was an easy stroll away at the village pub, The Plough.
There, we could get simple
pub fare or something fancier. We loved the atmosphere of a pub filled with
dogs, many resting in the several dog beds
provided, and returned several times.
We’d planned to spend day two relaxing in the garden, but
after breakfast and a visit with the donkeys, our innkeeper Alan chauffeured us
to Bourton-on-the Water, dubbed the Venice of the Cotswolds because of the
meandering River Windrush in its
midst. We explored and had the requisite
fish and chips. We were soon to discover that Alan wasn’t taking any chances on
our being bored and was ready with options for any day we didn’t already have
planned.
Day three we enjoyed a breathtakingly scenic drive with
Cotswolds Adventures. We visited too many to name villages, all with stories to
tell. We learned J.M. Barrie had donated
a cricket pavilion to the village of Stanway. We climbed the Broadway Tower,
the highest point in the Cotswolds. It was built in the late 1700s as a folly, a building meant primarily as decoration. We
heard about the celebrated and sometimes scandalous Mitford sisters of Batsford and were regaled with stories of
their eccentricities.
The Cotswolds were renowned for their wool in the Middle
Ages, and Stow-on-the-Wold, one of
several Cotswold Wool towns, is marked by small alleys used to herd the sheep to the square on market days. A visit to St. Edward’s
Church just off the square revealed a fairytale back door flanked by two yew
trees, a sight thought to have inspired Tolkien’s design for the
entrance to Moria.
Upper and Lower Slaughter were our last and possibly most
picturesque stops. We discovered that Upper Slaughter is one of only thirteen
Doubly Thankful villages in the UK, villages who lost not a single man in WWI
or WWII.
A cycling tour of the Windrush Valley was also on our
schedule. Again, we marveled at storybook villages of cottages built with honey-colored Cotswold stone and the occasional
thatched-roof.
In a day full of surprises—we
had no idea of the itinerary beyond its distance
of 20 miles—the ruins of Minster Lovell Hall and its intact Dovecote
were a special treat. We lunched at The
Swan Inn in Swinbrook once owned by the last remaining Mitford sister, Dowager
Duchess of Devonshire. Doesn’t that sound Downtown Abbeyish?
After a few more hills than I would have wished for, we ended
in Burford with scones and coffee before venturing into the Mad Hatter, a
bookshop that sells hats or vice versa. As was becoming our custom, we ended
our day relaxing with a glass of wine, feeding carrots to the donkeys, and
petting Paddington.
Less strenuous was our visit to Blenheim Palace where we especially
enjoyed the Churchill exhibit topped off with
a stop at Churchill’s grave in a nearby village. It was our innkeeper Alan who
added that special touch to the day.
Let there be no doubt I highly recommend a trip to the Cotswolds and a stay at Fieldways
Inn.
