The Cotswalds
Step into an episode of Midsomer Murders, minus the crime, with KERRY PARNELL
YOU know you have reached the Cotswolds when the roads turn from motorways to lanes, the cars transform into four-wheel drives with a starting price of $150,000 and you pass through towns and villages so preposterously pretty you start to wonder if it’s a giant movie set.
This is the English region beloved by directors, with everything from Downton Abbey to
Bridget Jones’s Diary and The Holiday filmed in the region’s honey-coloured stone villages.
The Cotswolds is huge, covering 2038 square kilometres and runs through five counties. It’s home to so many celebrities it’s Chelsea-with-wellies. Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who rented a house there, counted among their neighbours the Beckhams, ex British PM David Cameron, Kate Moss, Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet.
West of Oxford, around 120km from London, it is also where you will find Soho Farm House — the country retreat of the private members’ club, of which Meghan is a fan. She had her hen weekend there. It is made up of luxury lakeside cabins, swimming pools, spa, restaurants and a bar full of A-listers. Cabins start around $600 a night and non-members can apply to visit.
If it’s chocolate box cottage England you are after — full of country manor hotels, gastropubs and tea rooms — then the Cotswolds is for you.
A good place to start is Burford, known as the Gateway to the Cotswolds. A pretty market
town, it is made up of stone cottages, a medieval church, cafes and antique shops lining the sloping high street, painted in teal and duck egg blue, like a Farrow & Ball advert.
From there head to Stow-on-the-Wold, which marvellously lays claim to having the oldest inn in England, The Porch House, dating back to 947. There are many popular tourist destinations in the region, including Blenheim Palace, Winston Churchill’s birthplace, and the completely bonkers Cotswold Wildlife Park, where rhinos and giraffes wander about the manor house lawn.
One of the most-visited villages is Bourton-on-the-Water, arranged, like its name suggests, around the River Windrush. The waterway wends itself through the town, at some points becoming so shallow it’s a fjord that cars can drive through (I wouldn’t attempt it in a rental car), with lovely cafes lining the riverbank. It’s also home to its famous heritage-listed model village, an exact replica of Bourton-on-the-Water built in miniature, out of Cotswold stone. Originally opened in 1937, the only thing that ever changes is the shop names.
Nearby is Snowshill, a higgledy-piggledy village so steep you need to say a prayer you don’t meet anyone driving in the opposite direction. This was the village used for Bridget Jones’ family home, because in film world, everyone in the UK comes from somewhere as picturesque as that. Don’t worry if you don’t spot Mark Darcy, because you can have a good look around another English gentleman’s home, Snowshill Manor.
This pretty Tudor manor house, now a National Trust property, is one of the most unusual historic homes the Trust runs. It was owned by architect Charles Wade, who bought the property in 1919 and set about turning into a treasure trove of collections of everything from bicycles to musical instruments — stuffing it so full he had to live in a small cottage in the grounds. Incredibly, he had a wife.
After Wade died his wife Mary saw out her days in nearby Broadway — one of the most stunning villages in the Cotswolds and the inspiration of artists and writers Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent, Mark Twain and Henry James, it’s a beautiful place to walk around, including a climb up Broadway Tower, once the retreat of William Morris.
Rivalling Broadway for Instagram potential, are the intriguingly-named villages of Upper and Lower Slaughter. Despite sounding like they are locations in Midsomer Murders (also filmed in the Cotswolds) where residents are regularly done in with pitchforks, the name actually derives from the Old English word for wet land — slough or slothre, which is slightly disappointing. The villages however are anything but, arranged down the hillside along the River Eye.
One of the finest hotels in the region is in Upper Slaughter — Lords of the Manor, a 17th century manor house previously owned by the Slaughter family who bought it from King Henry VIII, who was known to have enjoyed a spot of slaughtering. Occupied by the army in World War II, the village incredibly saw no loss of life in either war, becoming known as a Doubly Thankful Village — one of just 13 in England and Wales.
Nowadays visitors are thankful such unspoilt beauty is still to be found and the home has been turned into a country house hotel, for many to enjoy.
With an emphasis on discreet luxury, Lords of the Manor is an English boutique hotel that specialises in fine dining. It has two restaurants — the sophisticated Dining Room and the Atrium, an even more formal restaurant which offers $177 tasting menus with matching wines for just 16 diners.
The food is elegant in its simplicity, expertly prepared by head chef Charles Smith, who brings fine dining to the region.
Set in eight acres of lawns and lakes, the hotel has recently been refurbished with quirky English interiors, with each of the 26 rooms unique. Think huge wooden doors with oldfashioned keys, four-poster beds, antique armoires, roll-top baths and enormous walk-in showers; comfortable but full of character. It’s the perfect destination for grown-up gourmands looking for a special getaway.
Plus, you get to pretend you are lord and lady of the manor, if only for a night or two.