Cotswolds

• 🌍 Bath – world-famous Roman and Baroque spa town constructed out of Cotswold stone
• 🌍 Gloucester – known for its Gothic cathedral where the boy king Henry III was crowned
• 🌍 Oxford – the vibrant and ancient City of Dreaming Spires

• 🌍 Burford – a gateway to the Cotswolds from the east, best known for its wildlife park
• 🌍 Cheltenham – elegant spa town with many events throughout the year including literature and jazz festivals, and the equestrian Gold Cup.
• 🌍 Chippenham – market town from where several south Cotswold villages can be accessed
• 🌍 Chipping Campden – a town with several interesting large houses and gardens
• 🌍 Chipping Norton – a friendly Oxfordshire market town with access to Blenheim Palace and the Rollright Stones.
• 🌍 Cirencester – Roman heritage and a bustling Saturday market
• 🌍 Cricklade – 9th-century Saxon town close to the source of the River Thames
• 🌍 Fairford – known for its wool and nearby RAF airfield and airshow
• 🌍 Malmesbury – town known for its historic abbey, one of the few English houses with a continual history from the 7th century through to the Dissolution of the Monasteries
• 🌍 Moreton-in-Marsh – yet another pretty town with access to gardens such as Batsford Arboretum
• 🌍 Stow-on-the-Wold – cute cottages, a quaint market square and a "magical door": Stow is selfie central for Instagrammers and Weiboers alike.
• 🌍 Stroud – a smaller town with a rich industrial heritage based around textile mills which were placed to take advantage of both the local Cotswold sheep and the rivers which run through the five valleys and converge in Stroud. Sometimes considered alternative and nicknamed 'Notting Hill in wellies'.
• 🌍 Tetbury – Charles III's Highgrove House and the fabulous Westonbirt Arboretum
• 🌍 Winchcombe – home to Sudeley Castle and Hailes Abbey
• 🌍 Witney – market town near Oxford, known historically for its woollen blankets

• 🌍 Bourton-on-the-Water – attractive riverside village known for having a model village of itself
• 🌍 Broadway – country retreat of Victorian designer William Morris; a good base for hiking, including up to Broadway Tower
• 🌍 Castle Combe – this pretty village has no castle, but it does have a motor racing circuit!
• 🌍 Chedworth – Chedworth Roman villa is a ruin, but does have some impressive 4th-century mosaics

During the Middle Ages, the Cotswolds became prosperous from the wool trade with the Continent. Much of this wealth was directed towards the building of churches, the area still preserving a large number of large, handsome Cotswold Stone "wool churches". The area remains affluent and has attracted wealthy Londoners and others who own second homes in the area or have chosen to retire to the Cotswolds.

Typical Cotswold towns are Broadway, Burford, Chipping Norton, Cirencester, Moreton-in-Marsh and Stow-on-the-Wold. The Cotswold 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 in country park.

The Cotswolds run generally south-west to north-east, the northern and western edges marked by steep escarpments down to the valleys of the rivers Severn and Avon and the city of Gloucester, the eastern boundary by the city of Oxford (the university "city of dreaming spires"), the west by Stroud, and the south by the middle reaches of the Thames Valley and towns such as Cirencester, Lechlade and Fairford. Key physical features of the area, including the characteristic uplift of the 'Cotswold Edge' can be clearly seen as far south as Bath.

The Cotswolds are characterised by attractive small towns and villages built of the underlying rock, known as "Cotswold Stone" (actually, a yellow oolitic limestone).

• Cotswolds vistor information website

Trains exist between some main towns, but the line from Cirencester was axed 30 years ago. The key lines are:

• Bristol Temple Meads–Filton Abbey Wood–Bristol Parkway–Yate–Cam & Dursley–Gloucester–Cheltenham Spa–Ashchurch for Tewkesbury–Worcester Shrub Hill–Worcester Foregate Street
• Swindon–Chippenham–Bath Spa–Bristol Temple Meads
• Swindon–Kemble–Stroud–Stonehouse–Gloucester
• Oxford–Hanborough–Charlbury–Kingham–Moreton-in-Marsh–Honeybourne–Evesham–Pershore–Worcester Shrub Hill—Worcester Foregate Street

As Bill Bryson said, this is the only option to see the Cotswolds. He was probably right. It's great walking country though - gentle hillsides not mountains.

Note: Take care of the cows on commons (they stand/lie on the roads at night).

The bus services in the Cotswolds are very limited, although the first time visitor might have some luck exploring the Fosse Way by bus - a Roman road connecting Moreton in Marsh and various market towns to Cirencester. Research is definitely needed. Many villages only get one bus a day, or some only one bus a week. Even larger towns, such as Cirencester and Stroud, only get one bus every hour.

The Cotswolds are hilly but there are well-marked cycle routes on quiet roads.

Perhaps Bill Bryson was wrong - there are lovely walks throughout all the Cotswolds, taking from a couple of hours for a gentle stroll between villages to a week or more on a walking tour. Local companies offer guided and self-guided walks and tours which explore the rich history of the area. The Cotswold Way is a 102-mile long-distance walk, designated as an official National Trail in 1998, running from Chipping Campden to Bath.

The Cotswolds are home to a number of important historical houses, often set in their own estates and therefore not part of a particular town or village. The local tourist board provides information on houses open to the public, which include Snowshill Manor, Chavanage, William Morris's house at Kelmscott, Sudeley Castle and Berkeley Castle. Some houses are closed but provide the setting for nationally important gardens such as Hidcote Manor, Painswick Rococo or Abbey House Gardens.

• Chastleton House, Chastleton, near Moreton-in-Marsh