Win a cottage break
CAST a vote in the 2018 British Travel Awards and you could be enjoying a relaxing cottage holiday. Everyone who takes part is entered into a draw for a heap of superb getaway prizes worth tens of thousands of pounds. Among those is a £500 voucher from Sykes Holiday Cottages. There are 83 categories but vote for as many as you want at britishtravelawards.com. THE Cotswolds show off the best of the English countryside. The region is ideal for a late summer break, with villages of honey stone, babbling brooks, manor houses and sweet hollyhocks. Cleeve Hill is a massive upland brow – a forehead for the Cotswolds on its western edge by Cheltenham. You get views to the west down over the Severn Valley and east over the rolling wolds, which are high grassy moors.
As it climbs, the road that runs up and across Cleeve Hill, the B4632 Cheltenham to Broadway, is a millionaire’s row of posh properties, making the most of the scenery. But everyone can enjoy the footpaths that stitch the open grasslands on top of the hill. Here the view is even better.
Head for the Quarry car park next to the Cleeve Hill Golf Club and walk out in either direction along the long-distance footpath, the Cotswold Way. But make sure you are on the western side if there is a chance of a sunset. Bourton is the Cotswolds’ one-stop honeypot. The river Windrush flows across a generous village green, spanned by footbridges and surrounded by handsome inns and shops.
This watery mainstreet brings a special kind of peace and has inspired comparisons with Venice. Weeping willows trail in the water, ducks wait for chips and there is a toasted teacake around every corner.
Also in and near the village are several big family attractions – Birdland, the Motor Museum, the Model Village and the Cotswold Farm Park. All in all it is pretty irresistible on a sunny day but that also means it gets very busy. There is great walking all over the region but those who prefer a gentle amble should try the Warden’s Way. This links Upper and Lower Slaughter, running through fields alongside the clear waters of the river Eye.
Lower Slaughter is the bigger of the two villages, as pretty as Bourton-on-the-water nearby, but without the shops and crowds. There is a fancy manor house hotel, a church with an honesty box for local produce and the hideway River Cafe, reached through the only craft shop in the village, in a converted mill overlooking the millpond.
From here, Upper Slaughter is a 45 minute walk and it, too, has a fancy manor house hotel and just as many pretty river cottages and sweet gardens but with even more peace. There cannot be many high-profile tourist destinations where a trout farm gets big numbers. But then the village that 19th-century artist William Morris described as “the most beautiful in England” is carefully curated by the National Trust, so shops and tearooms are hard to find.
Most people, including Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, come to the Cotswolds for Arlington Row, which explains all the Japanese coach parties. This is the line of 17th-century weavers’ cottages which hit the news a couple of years ago when a yellow car belonging to one of the residents was vandalised for ruining the view.
Like Bourton and the Slaughters, there is a babbling brook – and in this case it is rich with fish. If you have got your own transport, explore northwest out of Bibury up the Coln Valley to Fossebridge, through gorgeous stone villages. There is no shortage of artisan delicatessens all over the Cotswolds but Stow is the true shopper’s nirvana. The central square, with loads of parking, is ringed by boutiques and inns in historic buildings.
This is the home town of Scotts of Stow, homeware and kitchenware specialists, which has two outlets on the square. Then there are the apothecaries, jewellery designers, perfect home shops, horological craftsmen – or watch shops, if you like – where you can buy a slice of Cotswold life to take away.
Stow is also quite a gourmet hangout, with a