Quintessential English Villages

The Cotswold area is designated as area of outstanding beauty and is considered to have unique features derived from the local Cotswold stone, the rural landscape, stone-built villages, historical towns, thatched roofs, stately homes and gardens . The area became prosperous from the wool trade during the Middle ages and the area remains affluent.

We started early in the morning for our Cotswold driving tour and we took the Bath Rd from Junction 5 from M4. We passed Malborough, Avesbury and stopped at Devizies which is a lovely little village. We parked our car near the market place and we had lunch at the White Bear which was really nice.

Our next stop was beautiful Lacock village. The village dates from the 13th century and has many limewashed half-timbered and stone houses which were used as a location of Tv and film productions of Pride and Prejudice, Moll Flanders and Emma. The Abbey also featured in the recent Harry Potter films. This is a delightful village and you feel you are back in time here.

We then headed to Castle Combe which is one of the prettiest village in England. The village houses are all of typical Cotswold type, constructed in stone with thick walls and roofs made from split natural stone tiles . The properties are many hundreds of years old and are listed as ancient monuments.

Castle Combe's was originally a British hill fort which became occupied by the Romans due to its proximity to The Fosse Way. After the Romans, came the Normans, who built the fort up into a Castle. This village became important centre during for the wool industry, the spinsters and weavers lived in the cottages and the river, still known as By Brook, provided the power to run the mills.

Castle Combe has hosted many filming activities and the visitors come here for its charm.

After our stroll there we drove to Tetbury, Panswick passing pretty villages, lovely scenery and we headed for Mercure hotel between Painswick and Gloucester. Our satnav got confused and took us on a wrong turning but finally we reached our hotel which is set in beautiful grounds. Our room was nice and the view of the gardens from our room was lovely . We were tired after all the driving so we had room service but some food was bit cold but we decided not to make a fuss as the hotel was really nice. The staff even loaned us an adaptor for I phone.



Next morning we started early towards Cheltenham and we continued to Winchcombe, Stanway, Stanton, Broadway. These are all very Quaint villages with rolling hills and we stopped at the Broadway for lunch, the weather was sunny so we enjoyed our stroll at the village. All the Cotswold villages are charming but my absolute favourite is Broadway. We then passed Moreton in Marsh, Bourton on Waters and we stopped at the Slaughters for afternoon tea then for a short walk which was very magical.

We passed Burford, my other favourite village and then we headed home, we really enjoyed our driving holiday in Cotswold; the weather was perfect and we did get to experience the magic of the Cotswolds with its beautiful chocolate box villages set in rural scenery.