England Guide
Oxfordshire, the Chilterns and the Cotswolds
The Cotswolds
The limestone hills that make up the Cotswolds are preposterously photogenic, dotted with a string of picture-book villages, many of them built by wealthy cloth merchants in between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Largely bypassed by the Industrial Revolution, which heralded the area's commercial decline, much of the Cotswolds is technically speaking a relic, its architecture beautifully preserved. Numerous churches are decorated with beautiful carving, for which the local limestone was ideal: soft and easy to carve when first quarried, but hardening after long exposure to the sunlight. Not surprisingly, the Cotswolds have become one of the country's main tourist attractions, with many towns afflicted by plagues of tearooms and souvenir and antiques shops.
To see the Cotswolds at their best, you should visit off season or perhaps avoid the most popular towns and instead escape into the hills themselves, though even in high season the charms of towns like Chipping Campden – "Chipping" as in ceapen, the Old English for market – Winchcombe and Northleach are evident. As for walking, this might be a tamed landscape, but there's good scope for exploring the byways, either in the gentler valleys that are most typical of the Cotswolds or along the dramatic escarpment that marks the boundary with the Severn Valley. A national trail, the Cotswold Way, runs along the top of the ridge, stretching about one hundred miles from Chipping Campden past Cheltenham, and Gloucester as far as Bath. A number of prehistoric sites provide added interest along the route, with some – such as Belas Knap near Winchcombe – being well worth a diversion.
There are also a few larger towns hereabouts, the biggest true Cotswold town being Cirencester, a buzzing community dating back to the Romans. On the western edge, there's also Cheltenham, but this has a very different feel, predominantly Regency in tone.
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