Bourton is the jewel in crown of Cotswolds
AT weekends in summer and on Bank Holidays, Bourton on the Water has to suffer the invasions which have resulted from the discovery of its beauty”.
So reads a local guide book from the 1920s and the words are as apt now as they were then.
As the archive picture postcards you see here show, the centre of Bourton has changed little in the past few decades.
According to the travel brochure you’re browsing, the village is billed Queen of the Cotswolds, the Venice of the Cotswolds, or the jewel in the Cotswolds’ crown.
During peak season coaches in a constant stream pull up to disgorge their camera clickers.
If the passengers are lucky, there’s just enough time to see the model village, nip into a tea shop, then it’s everybody back on the bus and off to Stratford to do Shakespeare.
Like other Cotswold villages, Bourton is a victim of its own attractions.
Attractions such as the fine country houses and cottages, built from locally quarried stone mellowed to the colour of honey on butter.
The oldest buildings date back no further than the 17th century, although there’s been a settlement hereabouts since Iron Age times.
The village sits at the confluence of a number of ancient routes, most important of which is the Fosse Way.
This Roman road runs from the mouth of the River Humber in the north east of England to Devon in the south west - so you could say Bourton has been on the tourist trail for thousands of years.
It was in the mid 19th century, however, that visitors began to arrive in large numbers thanks to the railway.
Until the mid 1960s you could have boarded a train from Gloucester and travelled the 25 miles or so to Bourton, stopping along the way at Churchdown, Leckhampton and Charlton Kings.
Then excitement mounted as you approached Dowdeswell where your carriage took to the air as the train trundled over the elegant viaduct that tip toed across the valley.
On through Sandywell Park tunnel, a pause at Andoversford station, then Andoversford Junction, on to Notgrove station and eventually Bourton on the Water.
In the latter years of Queen Victoria’s reign bicycling boomed in popularity.
This increased the influx of weekenders to Bourton, as men and women explored the new found independence of two wheeled pedal power.
The oddly named Old New Inn catered for cyclists offering refreshments and overnight accommodation.
It was behind this pub in the 1930s that a gent named Morris, helped by friends, built the famous model village.
Coronation Bridge, the most recently built span across the river that that runs through Bourton, is one of five that step over the Windrush.
The oldest of Bourton’s bridges dates from 1754 and stands in front of the old corn mill, which opened in 1978 as the Cotswold Motor Museum.
Most of the bridges are flanked by a ford, a reminder of days when well laden wagons and the heavy horses that pulled them were considered too great a burden for the masonry to support.
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