The travels of Tim and Megan: The Cotswolds

Saturday

On Saturday morning we caught the train from London to Oxford, where we picked up a rental car, and set off for the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds is an area to the north-west of London, stretching from Bath in the south up to Chipping Campden in the north and roughly from Oxford in the east to Gloucester in the west. It is a region full of pretty honey-coloured stone villages and remarkable views of the English countryside.

There was a slight hiccup with the rental car. We had booked a car online with Easycar, but they had failed to forward the booking to the rental car outlet, meaning there was no car for us when we arrived in Oxford! Thankfully there was a Europcar outlet just along the road and they had a car for us, so our holiday could continue. Needless to say we were unimpressed with Easycar.

We drove from Oxford to a town on the edge of the Cotswolds called Witney. Since 1669 the town has been famous for its production of blankets - even the Queen purchases her blankets from Witney! We had hoped to stroll down the main street, check out a few shops and maybe even buy a blanket. However, it was not to be.

Witney has a population of around 22,000, but there must have been double that number sifting around the main street when we passed through. We spent half an hour circling in the car looking for a park, but not only were all of the car parks full, there were hundreds of cars crawling around the town centre, bringing traffic to a virtual standstill. We were not impressed, so we crawled our way out of Witney and continued on our merry way.

Next stop was Burford, known as one of the prettiest villages in the Cotswolds. Burford has a long and wide high street full of stone cottages. We had lunch in a lovely old pub called The Mermaid on the high street. After lunch we strolled through the town centre, stopping in at some of the gift shops as we went.

From Burford, we travelled west to Cheltenham. Cheltenham is, like Bath, one of England's spa towns. Cheltenham has a population of around 90,000. It was difficult to find a car park here as well, but we found one and went for a walk through the town centre. By now it was past 3pm so it was getting dark and it was absolutely freezing. Cheltenham had some "Christmas market" stalls set up in the square, although the markets were not very Christmassy! Still, there was some really cool stuff there.

There was thick fog across most of England on Saturday which, when mixed in with the fact that it gets dark at 3pm, the roads are narrow and winding, we had no idea where we were supposed to be going and the road markings are poor, we decided to leave Cheltenham and make our way to the B&B where we were staying before it got too late. We were booked in to the Lower Farmhouse B&B in Adlestrop, a small village near Stow-on-the-Wold. We managed to negotiate the fog, darkness, narrow roads and poor signage to successfully find our way there and we listened to the radio commentary of the All Blacks' win over England as we drove. A fine win to cap off another Grand Slam-winning tour.

Once we arrived at the B&B, we were welcomed on the driveway by the owners' dogs, which were very cute. We then had tea and cake in the lounge with another couple who were staying there. The farmhouse was a beautiful big place, the front of which was built in the 1790s and the majority added in the 1990s.

Despite seemingly being in the middle of nowhere, we were spoiled for choice for restaurants. We decided to go to the Fox Inn, just a mile or so from the B&B. The Fox is a beautiful old pub with a log fire and a great atmosphere. It got a little crowded later on, but the food was amazing, especially the sticky toffee pudding we had for dessert.

Sunday

Sunday started in fine fashion with a delicious breakfast. We had juice, fruit and cereal, followed by a cooked breakfast of bacon, egg, sausage, tomato and toast. The sausage in particular was magnificent, probably in the top three of the "finest sausages ever tasted by us hall of fame". We got going early after breakfast, as we wanted to cover a lot of ground and it gets dark by 3.30pm. There was no fog on Sunday but it was very cold and drizzly.

Our first stop was Stow-on-the-Wold, not far from our B&B. Stow is the highest town in the Cotswolds (at 240m) and is the meeting point of eight different routes. It was also the site of the last battle of the Civil War. Stow has a lovely town square, which is very European looking in its design. We braved the icy temperatures (it actually snowed in Stow briefly while we were there) to look around a few shops.

We were amazed that there were some really good quality gift shops, antique shops and craft shops etc all through the Cotswolds, but especially in Stow. We spent a bit of time in one shop in particular that had all sorts of wall clocks, some really cute door stops and paper weights in the form of various animals and all sorts of Russian doll sets. Tim bought a Beatles themed Russian doll set - awesome.

We walked down to the town square, past the Royalist Hotel, which is apparently England's oldest inn - some of its timbers have been carbon-dated to the 10th century. We also checked out the markets in the town hall/library in the centre of the square, where there were all sorts of treasures. However, the snow forced us back to the car and we carried on to The Slaughters.

The Slaughters are renowned for being among the most picturesque villages in the Cotswolds. Their name comes from a corruption of a Saxon word meaning 'sloe trees'. We stopped at Lower Slaughter first and had a look inside St Mary's Church there. It was a very pretty little church and it was surprisingly warm! We walked along the stream that runs through Lower Slaughter but we decided to drive the mile or so to Upper Slaughter rather than walk the whole way. Apparently the best way to enjoy the scenic Slaughters is to walk between them, but weather was not permitting. Upper Slaughter was a slightly larger collection of stone cottages sitting on a small hill above the stream.

Our next destination was Bourton-on-the-water, a charming town with the River Windrush running through its centre. Here we visited a couple of toy shops, including one with a model railway museum! We also shared a cream tea at one of the many tearooms in the touristy town. The scones with cream and jam were just perfect and allowed us to warm up before going back out into the frosty air.

Chipping Campden is a town filled with thatched roof cottages, neatly clipped hedges and pretty gardens. We had lunch at Badgers Hall on the main street - Megan had soup and bread, Tim had roast beef with yorkshire pudding...very English! After lunch we walked up and down the main street, looking through another few shops and also checking out the ancient looking stone market place in the centre of the street.

The final stop of the day was Moreton-in-Marsh, purely for the Black Bear pub, where we could watch Chelsea v Arsenal on the big screen. It was a huge game for Arsenal, who had to win to stay in the race for the premiership. Chelsea had just lost their 4 and a half year unbeaten streak at home a few weeks earlier, but they were still the favourites to beat a hot and cold Arsenal. Thankfully Arsenal came from a goal down to win the match 2-1, a massive result. The pub was really cool - it had a log fire at one end and a lot of football memorabilia, as the owner of the pub had played for Southampton in his younger days and won the FA Cup with them in the 1970s!!!

From there we returned to the B&B before having dinner at the King's Head Inn. Again the atmosphere and the food in the old pub were great, although the servings were massive - we just about had to roll home!

Burford

Markets in
Cheltenham

Lower
Farmhouse
B&B

Stow-on-
the-Wold

The stocks
in Stow

Lower
Slaughter

Trying to
keep
warm

Upper
Slaughter