Road Trip: Cornwall to the Cotswolds Part 4

Here we are in the beautiful Cotswolds. We have the luxury of a whole cottage with a kitchen and a washing machine! Pity it's only for two nights.

The luxury of a kitchen at Evesham

Today's plan is to set out early and tour the iconic Cotswold villages that I so enjoyed seeing on my travels in 2010. It really is the stuff of storybooks (and TV murder mysteries).

We decide to go to the furtherest village on our list first so when we do the last village we will be closest to home. It takes us about an hour to reach Bourton-on-the-Water. We park in a side street and walk around the corner in the direction of the River Windrush which flows quietly and picturesquely through the village in a shallow channel. As we near the river we see there is a charity duck race getting underway. We cross the river on one of the charming little Cotswold stone pedestrian bridges and take up a position at the finish line where a net is stretched across the river.

Pedestrian Bridge in Bourton-on-the-Water

The ducks (bathtub size) are emptied into the river from one of the pedestrian bridges and there's great excitement and barracking as the ducks jostle for position, get into a little current, get washed aside and finally reach the finishing line. Who could guess: duck number one was the winner!

The duck are sent on their way

And the winner is… Number One!

We re-cross the river and have coffee and toasted tea cakes at a busy little cafe.

Continuing along the street we find the Old New Inn (yes, I know, weird) in whose back garden is the delightful model village I saw in 2010. It is, in fact, a model of this village, Burton-on-the-Water, each house, church and shop faithfully replicated in 1:9 scale. There are lace curtains in the windows, a choir singing in the church as you pass and the River Windrush gently flowing. Tiny flowers are blooming in gardens and there are bonsai-ed trees and clipped shrubs. In the back garden of the miniature Old New Inn is… you guessed it, a model village.

The Model Village, 1:9 scale

The Model Village at Bourton-on-the-Water

Jo contemplating a church in the Model Village

This popular tourist attraction was created during the 1930s by the publican of the Old New Inn, and local craftsmen, in the back garden of the pub.

Back to the car to continue the tour. Next stop, The Slaughters, first Lower then Upper. The word meaning 'a muddy place', apparently, not a slaughter house.

The Slaughters are quintessential Cotswolds, impossibly pretty Cotswold stone houses with picture perfect gardens, the River Eye meandering by. They are so pretty that everyone wants to come and visit them. As they do today and, as a result, there is not a parking spot to be had in Lower Slaughter.

Not far away is Upper Slaughter where we have more luck with a parking spot. We wander around the village and into the little 12^th century church of St Peter where we sign the visitors book and leave a donation. 

St Peter's 12th century Church at Upper Slaughter

The village of Upper Slaughter has remained unchanged for more than a century. The last building work in the village was completed in 1906 when the houses around the square, designed by the famous architect, Sir Edward Lutyens, were built. The village really is a little time-capsule.

The River Eye at Upper Slaughter

The unchanged village of Upper Slaughter

Moving on we head for Stow-on-the-Wold, the highest town in the Cotswolds where seven major roads, including the Roman Fosse Way, converge. It has its origins in the Iron Age, or perhaps earlier, but it developed as a market town during the 12^th century and eventually became the venue for biennial fairs still held to this day. The intriguing alleyways that lead to the Market Square were designed for the purpose of herding sheep into the square for sale at the market. They acted rather like a race where the animals could be counted as they came through the narrow lanes. I have referred to my book Around the UK in 80 Days for this information because, today, there is not a parking space to be found in Stow-on-the-Wold.

Stow-on-the-Wold

 The last place on the list is Morton-in-Marsh. Agatha Raisin fans will know this market town as the place where Agatha collects her friend, Roy, from the station when he comes from London to stay with Agatha and helps with her murder investigations.

We park away from the busy High Street and walk the short distance to admire the beautiful streetscape of honey-gold Cotswold stone. It is a wide street with side access roads. It is also a major road so a great deal of traffic passes through, including large trucks and tractors.

High Street, Morton-in-Marsh

Cotswold Stone buildings in Morton-in-Marsh

We walk along the street until we come to the Bell Inn which the J R R Tolkien Society claims to be the inspiration for Tolkien’s Prancing Pony inn featured in his books, The Lord of the Rings. Moreton-in-Marsh they believe to be his fictitious ‘Village of Bree’. Tolkien was a professor at Oxford University from 1925 to 1959 so the nearby towns and villages, of which this is one, would undoubtably have been a great source of inspiration for him.

The Bell Inn, Morton-in-Marsh

Our day in the Cotswolds is done, we've seen some of the prettiest villages in the country and survived some of the most hair-raising lanes you could ever hope not to drive on.

One of the Cotswolds' narrow lanes