You might think that after living in England for twelve months in 2004 I might have seen enough to last me a lifetime but when an invitation arrived in 2011 for a Cotswold wedding in the following spring we didn’t have to think about it too long before accepting.
Leaving Sydney at 6.00 am we flew a total of 24 hours with a brief stop in Dubai. It was 10.35pm when we found our bed in a Premier Inn at Heathrow. It had been a long day.
Of course we had to visit our former home in Chasetown, Staffordshire. It was good to catch up with Carol, the exchange teacher, admire her new kitchen and note the changes in the area. It was also wonderful to meet up with her parents who had been so kind to us. Dinner had been booked by Carol at 1709 Brasserie in Lichfield. The building dated from the 1500s and had black beamed ceilings and lots of character.
Next day we were on our way in our hired Ford Focus. It was bliss to travel the countryside knowing I didn’t have to go back to work next week, next month or ever again.
The first port of call was Whaddon where some of my ancestors had lived before emigrating to Australia in the 1860s. I wanted to find the church where the family was married, christened and buried. I couldn’t find any headstones with the names Ridgway or Colton but a local woman gave me the key to the church which was built in the 12th Century, so I stood in there and tried to imagine what life would have been like in this village one hundred and fifty years ago.
John was keen to see Bletchley Park where the breaking of the code for the German Enigma Machine took place.
We joined a one-and-a-half-hour tour of the buildings which explained how the Enigma Code was cracked and showed us replicas of the machines which were able to do this – the Bombe and later The Colossus. The latter was arguably the first ever computer. Unfortunately the originals were scrapped at the end of the Second World War.
Heading south we arrived at the Three Cups in Stockbridge around four o’clock and walked along the High Street. Tourists from London come here frequently for the fishing and the country air and the shops and cafes cater for them accordingly.
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I am sitting on the bed in our 15th Century Coaching Inn called the Three Cups in Stockbridge, Hampshire. The Cups are actually streams which run under the main street. The floor of our room veers in all directions. The walls are white with black framework oak beams leaning at odd angles. The ceiling is low on both our top floor and below so that the building looks quite squat. Up until now I haven’t mentioned the food because there was nothing much to say but tonight it was worth talking about. John had a pigeon on nettles entree with a red and a brown sauce. I tasted some and it was very good. We both had local trout with leeks and potatoes with a bowl of fresh vegetables – brilliant. We shared a plate of three citrus desserts. This was washed down with a French Cabernet Sauvignon.
Our home for the next week was The Bakery Cottage at Ampney Crucis, near Cirencester. There was a very pretty stream flowing through the village (the Ampney), an old church and attractive gardens. Every building was built from warm, brown stone, there was no graffiti, no rubbish and in every direction the scenery was idyllic.
The venue for the wedding (Cripps Barn) was perfect, nice and warm with heaters and a log fire. The ceremony was held in the large stone barn. Next to it was a new addition which had been sympathetically built to complement the original. This is where the tables were set for dinner. We had drinks on the terrace in the one burst of sunshine. The ceremony was short, the bride looked radiant and elegant, the speeches were entertaining and the meal of smoked salmon, lamb with couscous and raspberry tart was tasty. Guests danced away the evening in the stone barn, planning to regroup for lunch the next day.
On Sunday morning we drove to Bibury, a picturesque village with a stream full of trout, a row of weaver’s homes called Arlington Row and the typical chocolate box houses of the Cotswolds. We then parked at the Barnsley Pub in readiness for the after wedding lunch, taking a stroll around Barnsley House where the bride and groom stayed the previous night. They happened to see Liz Hurley and Shane Warne walking out the door as this was a favourite watering hole of theirs.
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On this visit to the Cotswolds we have been able to differentiate between the villages as they all have their own individual character. Nailsworth, on the way to our National Trust Mansion, Woodchester, is not one of the pretty towns although it is supposed to be “lively and artistic” and has the largest number of working water wheels per square mile in the country. We were underwhelmed, especially as it was cold and wet. The redeeming features was Hobbs Bakery. It was warm and cosy, the coffee was great and the hiker’s bar which we shared hit the spot.
Fortified for what lay ahead we drove into Nympsfield where two walkers directed us to the Woodchester Mansion car park, about two kilometres further on. Here we walked another mile (1.6km)
“along a rutted track through the trees, at last to come upon the huge stone building hunched against the hill”. (Tourist brochure)
Woodchester Mansion was begun in the 1850s but never finished. Because the interior walls were never lined the structure of the building can clearly be seen. There are no ceilings on the first or second floor and you can see fifty feet up to the roof. The owner ran out of money and died before he could complete the house. It is one of the most amazing structures I have ever seen.
We thought that as it was our last day in the Cotswolds we would revisit the Slaughters and Stow-in-the-Wold. Driving into Lower Slaughter we parked opposite Lower Slaughter Manor. At the front was a sign which advertised soup and sandwiches for two for 20 pounds. As we walked in I decided on my next visit to the Cotswolds (after I win the lottery) I will stay here. We were ushered into an elegant but comfortable sitting room with chess boards set up on tables and other games stacked on shelves. A seafood bisque with hot bread roll, a choice of salmon, tuna, chicken, cheese or ham sandwiches and coffee had me happy to stay there forever. Even the toilet was divine.
Tomorrow we move on to Thomas Hardy country!
The Curry Apple Orchard 