Rough Guides - The Rough Guide to Cotswolds, Stratford-upon-Avon and Oxford (Travel Guide eBook) (Rough Guides)

Contents

A NOTE TO READERS

At Rough Guides, we always strive to bring you the most up-to-date information. This book was produced during a period of continuing uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, so please note that content is more subject to change than usual. We recommend checking the latest restrictions and official guidance.

Introduction to

The Cotswolds

The Cotswold hills are special. Thatched cottages, dry-stone walls and, above all, the mellow, honey-coloured stone used in the areas buildings lend a unique warmth and unity of character to towns, villages and countryside. Sheep graze in the shadow of country churches, backwater hamlets slumber in the sunshine catch the Cotswolds in the right place, at the right time, and you could almost imagine nothings changed here in hundreds of years.

Except, of course, it has. Despite the appearance of natural tranquillity, this landscape, tilted gently from Oxfordshires low-lying meadows up to the dramatic Cotswold Edge , an escarpment overlooking the Severn and Vale of Evesham, has been intensively managed for centuries. Caught in the heartland of southern England, forming a rough quadrilateral between Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon, Cheltenham and Bath, the Cotswolds first grew wealthy on the back of the wool trade: the local breed of sheep, sporting a distinctive shaggy mane, is known as the Cotswold Lion .

By the early seventeenth century textile money was rolling in, and the Cotswolds were benefiting from the attentions of wealthy merchants. The landscape is still characterized by the grand wool churches they funded and the manor houses and almshouses they put up in the Jacobean style of the day high gables, mullioned windows, tall chimney clusters and all, everything built using that rich-toned yellow Cotswold limestone .

Cots Wolds?

Wolds an Old English word referring to rolling uplands are not unique to the Cotswolds: both Lincolnshire and Yorkshire have their own. The origin of cot is trickier to pin down. Some say it has to do with a Saxon farmer named Cot or Cod, who settled near the source of the River Windrush. An alternative derivation is from the Old English term cot, cognate with cottage, meaning a simple rural dwelling: perhaps the Cotswolds were named for the stone shelters built on the wolds by Anglo-Saxon farmers for themselves and/or their sheep? Nobody really knows.

The second phase of prosperity has come in our own time. Tourism alongside an equally significant rise in property prices , as wealthy outsiders seek to buy into the Cotswolds clich of rural timelessness has changed everything. Today, of the 152,000 people living within the protected Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty , 73 percent commute to jobs outside. For the first time, it has become uneconomic for many to farm. The heritage industry has taken over, ruthlessly marketing the region with an over-reliance on twee imagery and funnelling visitors onto a tired old circuit of stately homes and gardens, tearooms and visitor attractions. As a consequence theres a fair amount of money sloshing around the Cotswolds economy, feeding a burgeoning service sector but also helping to keep traditional skills such as thatching and dry-stone walling alive.

This is a touristy destination, but there is a very definite beaten track and its not hard to steer clear of the crowds. Construct a visit not just around stately homes, but also around farmers markets . Rather than towns, resolve to stay in villages : some of the Cotswolds loveliest places to stay and best restaurants are out in the countryside. Tour by car if you like, but options exist for slower, more interesting ways to travel: by bike and on foot,