How to Escape London and See
the Cotswolds – the England of Calendars and Picture
Books
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| The Cotswolds features rolling green hills with 100 stone villages |
London is magnificent, but it can also be big, noisy and
crowded with swarms of international tourists following guides holding up
umbrellas. If you want to see the real
England – or at least, the Harry Potter
fantasy version of what Shakespeare called “this green and pleasant land,” you
need to get to the Cotswolds.
This postcard-pretty rural area of rolling green hills and
honey-colored stone villages lies just 60 miles from Big Ben, but is a world
away in atmosphere. Public footpaths meander
over stone walls through fields of contented sheep. Lazy rivers with names like Windrush flow
past country pubs with wood smoke curling from the chimney.
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| The Slaughters Country Inn |
Of course, there are tour buses here,
too. But the great thing about the
Cotswolds is, if you leave the town square on foot, the village soon turns to
countryside, and you’ll have the countryside all to yourself. Small wonder that Madonna, Kate Moss, Hugh
Grant, Elizabeth Hurley, Patrick Stewart …and of course, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling – all call the Cotswolds
home.
And you can too, on an easy day break from London. Here’s how you do it.
Rambling in the
Cotswolds
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| Paddington Station |
Leave your bags at your London hotel, throw just the bare
essentials in a backpack, wear your best walking shoes, buy a “day return
ticket” and catch the train at Paddington Station for Moreton-in-Marsh. Just 90 minutes away, Moreton has been
welcoming travelers to the Cotswolds for 1700 years.
“Cotswold” is a Saxon word for “hilly shelter for
sheep.” In the Middle Ages, Cotswold
sheep were known throughout Europe for their heavy fleece and excellent wool. Some 20,000 sheep a day could be sold in a single
Cotswold market town, and it was the wool industry that brought incredible
wealth to the area, as indicated by the gated mansions, elaborate churches and
wonderfully carved stone buildings along each town’s main thoroughfare.
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| Lower Slaughter |
When wool was replaced by cotton and the industrial
revolution, the sheep industry fell off.
With limited rail connections, the Cotswolds became an isolated farm
area, forgotten until the current age of tourism. Today, 85 percent of the land is still
agricultural, but these picturesque limestone hills are also home to nearly 100
pretty villages of stone buildings, all bursting with tea shops, antique
stores, inns and of course, pubs. The
entire 2,250 square miles of the Cotswold Hills has been designated an Area of
Outstanding National Beauty, sort of an English way of saying “it’s pretty.”
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| The buildings on the square of Stow-on-the-Wold date to 14-16th century |
Moreton is worth a quick poke around and be sure to see The
Bell Inn, which allegedly served as the inspiration for The Prancing Pony, the most famous pub in the Middle Earth of J R R
Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.”
Then catch one of the hourly buses to Stow-on-the-Wold. Located just four miles away, Stow is one of
England’s best known market towns -- and one of the loveliest. At 800 feet elevation this is the highest of
the Cotswold towns, which makes it a perfect walking center because all
footpaths go downhill.
Stow is an ancient town.
You can find Stone Age and Iron Age burial ruins nearby. Charles I stayed at the Kings Arms in 1645, just
before the battle of Naseby. Charles
lost the battle, and eventually his head, but don’t be put off by that. Like him, you can still enjoy a pint at the
Kings Arms. Or walk a few blocks to the Porch House, which has been an inn since 947 A.D., making it the oldest inn of
England. Try the fish and chips and a
Ploughman’s lunch (ham, cheese, pickle and bread) and wash it down with a pint
of local Brakspear bitter.
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| The Porch House may be England's oldest inn, dating back to 947 AD |
Stow’s town square is a storybook village of flowers and
handsome yellow-stone buildings from the 14th-16th
century. A highlight of the square is the
stock where in medieval days, transgressors where tied up and publicly humiliated
as punishment. When tormenting people in
stocks got boring, Stow also offered bear baiting, where wild dogs attack a
chained bear. Time must have hung heavy
before cable TV, and in the sleepy Cotswolds, Stow didn’t even have running
water until 1958.
The town square is enclosed by buildings because this is where
sheep were brought to market. Narrow
alleys leading into the square (one sheep wide) were built for the sheep, not
humans, but you can squeeze through them to find backstreet pubs, tea shops and
antique stores. Be sure to stop at the
Information Center to pick up a map for a classic four-mile Cotswold walk
(mostly downhill) from Stow to Bourton-on-the-Water.
A Classic Cotswolds
Ramble
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| Public footpaths |
The map will lead you to a cemetery near 15th century
St. Edward’s Church, then guide you to yellow arrows and signs indicating a well-marked
Public Footpath. There are 140,000 miles
of historic Public Footpaths in England and Wales that permit you to walk
across estates, past palaces, through working farms and across fields of sheep
and cows. “Kissing gates,” a sort of
swinging gate that lets humans pass, but not animals, keeps everyone in their
place. On this walk from the heights of
Stow, you’ll have sweeping views of the countryside, pass through several large
farms, cross streams, hop over stone walls, pass a cricket field, and get a
backdoor look at wonderful stone cottages.
Three miles brings you to the postcard pretty village of
Lower Slaughter. Fortunately, “slaughter”
here does not mean there are werewolves on the moors, but rather comes from Old
English, meaning “muddy place.” This is
as quaint a village as you can find.
There’s an old mill standing beside the River Eye, which flows quietly
through the center of town and is crossed by a series of small bridges. Stop
for a pint at the Slaughters Country Inn at their lovely riverside outdoor beer
garden. It’s the perfect place to watch
horseback riders cross the river and canter off on bridle paths.
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| Lower Slaughter is postcard pretty |
The footpath continues another mile along the river, past a
cricket field, to Bourton- on-the-Water, perhaps the most touristy of the
Cotswold villages, but with good reason – the town is simply gorgeous. The River Windrush flows quietly through the
center of the village and is spanned by five elegant stone pedestrian
bridges. Swans and ducks swim in the
stream and there are a number of pubs with pleasant outdoor patios overlooking
the water. Try the Duke of Wellington or
the Old Manse Hotel. There are tourist
attractions here – a miniature model of the village, a model railroad and a motorcar
museum -- and lots of shops, which of course also means, lots of tourists. But walk down a side street to admire the
flowers and stone buildings, and you’ll have the place to yourself. Plan on about 3-4 hours for the walk from
Stow with sightseeing and stops.
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| It's easy to follow the footpaths |
Dinner in Oxford
Hourly buses make the 20-minute return trip from Bourton to
Moreton and the return train to London, the last bus leaving Burton about 7:30
p.m. However, rather than eat dinner in the country, another option is to leave
Moreton by train in late afternoon and stop in Oxford enroute to London. The day return train ticket allows you to get
on and off the train as much as you like, as long you’re somewhere along the
route.
The classic university town of Oxford is relatively compact
and offers three fantastic pub options for dinner. From the station, it’s an
easy walk to the center of town, where pedestrian-friendly streets lead past
one architectural gem to another, including Oxford Castle, Christ Church
College (a film setting and inspiration for the dining hall in the Harry Potter films) and the famous punts
on River Cherwell. There are Harry Potter tours of Oxford in the afternoon and
ghost tours in the evening.
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| The colorful punts of Oxford |
To visit three ultimate classic English pubs, try The Bear, Oxford’s
oldest and most charming pub, which dates to 1242. The walls are covered with 4,500 neckties and
the pub has nooks and crannies and an outdoor beer garden.
The King’s Arms dates to 1607 and was used regularly as a
film location for the Inspector Morse
mysteries. It specializes in elegant pub
grub and is known for its steak and ale pie
The Eagle and Child is the youngest of the three, dating to
only 1650, but has the most famous history.
Not only did J.R.R. Tolkien write The
Hobbit here, but it was also a favorite hangout for Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis was also a regular at the Lamb and Flag
across the street, as was Tony Blair, when he was a student at Oxford.
When you’ve drunk enough history, there are two trains to
London every hour, each taking just an hour for the journey.
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| The color of the Cotswolds |
IF YOU GO: www.cotswolds.info/ Unfortunately, buses do not operate in the
Cotswolds on Sundays.
