Gloucestershire Tourist Guide - Articles

The spine of The Cotswold's runs southwest to northeast through six counties, particularly Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and southern Warwickshire. On the eastern boundary lies the city of Oxford and on the west is Stroud. To the south the middle reaches of the Thames Valley and towns such as Cirencester, Lechlade, Tetbury and Fairford are often considered to mark the southern limit of this region. However, key features of the area, especially the characteristic uplift of the Cotswold Edge, can be clearly seen as far south as Bath and towns such as Chipping Sodbury and Marshfield share elements of Cotswold character.

The area is characterised by attractive small towns and villages built of Cotswold stone as shown in the picture above of a thatched cottage in Chipping Campden. This limestone is rich in fossils, in particular fossilised sea urchins. In the Middle Ages, the wool trade made The Cotswold's prosperous, hence the Speaker of the British House of Lords sits on the Woolsack showing where the Medieval wealth of the country came from. Some of this money was put into the building of churches so the area has a number of large, handsome Cotswold stone "wool churches".

You are spoilt for choice in the types of Cotswold's Accommodation on offer in the area, from small B&B's to 5 star hotels as well as camping grounds, self catering and farmstays.

Typical Cotswold towns are Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway, Burford, Chipping Norton, Cirencester, Moreton-in-Marsh, Stow-on-the-Wold and Winchcombe. The town of Chipping Campden is notable for being the home of the Arts and Crafts movement, founded by William Morris at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. William Morris lived occasionally in Broadway Tower a folly now part of a country park, shown in the picture above. Chipping Campden is also known for the annual Cotswold Games, a celebration of sports and games dating back to the early 17th century.

Walking in the Cotswold's is very popular due to the many long and short distance paths that criss-cross the area, including The Cotswold Way, which is a long-distance footpath of just over 100 miles mainly on the edge of the Cotswold escarpement with good views over the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham.