Cotswold Way: Stanton to Snowshill to Buckland Woods and back

Our last summer walk was a perfect circular walk off the Cotswold Way. We started in Stanton and walked to Snowshill, then on to Buckland, and back. We couldn't have picked a lovelier day or a more picturesque part of the Cotswolds.

Our first stop was to the town of Stanway which is spread out along the road towards Stanton, with no really discernable village centre beyond the church. The church and manor of Stanway are right next to each other so that it is hard to know where one ends and the other begins.

The 12th century parish church of St Peter (with Victorian updates)

The manor is home to Stanway Water Gardens, a baroque garden featuring a 300 ft high fountain and a grand canal beside the lovely manor house. The house and garden were closed since the summer season had ended. It's on my list to visit next summer.

The Cotswold Way National Trail is a walking trail that runs along the length of the Cotswolds, starting in Chipping Campden in the north, and finishing at the front of Bath Abbey in the south.

The trail is 102 miles long and winds through many picturesque villages, such as Snowshill, Cranham & Painswick. The Cotswold Way also passes close to a significant number of historic sites, for example the Roman heritage at Bath, the Neolithic burial chamber at Belas Knap, Sudeley Castle near Winchcombe, Hailes Abbey and many beautiful churches and historic houses.

I would love to walk the entire Cotswold Way, but for now, we keep returning to do circular walks that are part of the trail so we can start and end in the same place. There are several amazing loop trails that take in part of the Cotswold way and we are slowly chipping away at those.

We started our walk at the Cotswold Way signpost towards the top of the village, just down from the Mount Inn. We did things a bit backwards in that we had an early lunch at the Mound Inn (great food) and then walked from there. I'm so glad we did because the Inn was closed by the time we returned late in the afternoon.

Stanton is one of the prettiest villages in the whole of the Cotswolds. It's a village frozen in time with little changed in 300 years.  It has a very pleasing long main street with several delightful corners where the ancient houses are built in typical Cotswolds style with the honey colored limestone walls. It looks like it should be a film set for a BBC period drama.

The walk from Stanton toward Snowshill leads though several fields and meadows, some woods, then up over a hill with beautiful views.  

Before long you can see Snowshill in the distance -- another idyllic Cotswold village.

Snowshill is best known for Snowshill Manor and the lovely Lavender farm just a mile or two from town.  Both are well worth a visit.  Click here to see more about both from a previous blog. 

Following our directions: "Pass through this delightful village between the pub and the church, past the car park and at the entrance to Snowshill Manor you will see a kissing gate leading into a field..."

More directions: "After two more kissing gates and delightful views down the valley the path turns rather more steeply downhill, crossing a stream. Bear left to wind up through the woods, ignoring a gate to the left. This stretch can be muddy after rain. Soon after emerging from the wood pass through a gate and then climb the steepening path up a short hill with fine views. Eventually the path levels out and you exit the field by an old iron kissing gate. Turn right and follow the track for half a mile until you pass through a field gate."

"Turn right along the track down towards a field gate, and continue downhill along the steepsided path. Be careful to watch your footing along this track, but also not to miss the awe-inspiring views (over Stanton to the Vale of Evesham and even across the Severn into Wales) and the magnificent diversity of wild flowers lining the path in the spring and early summer. Once tasted, this slice of Cotswolds will never be forgotten." 

We finally circled around back to Stanton and it's church of St. Michael. It's been said that this church, dedicated to St. Michael (the archangel who fought the devil), sits upon a sacred pagan site. Stanton is actually at the intersection of two ley lines (geographic lines along which many prehistoric sights are found).

We ended the day watching the town's cricket game.  What a great last summer walk in one of my many favorite places in England! 

Click here for the map on directions for this walk.

Click here for information on more circular walks on the Cotswold way.

Encounters by Ivor Gurney

One comes across the strangest things in walks,
Fragment of Abbey tithe barns fixed in modern,
With Dutch-sort houses, where the water baulks
Weired up, and brick-kilns broken among fern.
Old troughs, great stone cisterns bishops might have blessed
And baptized from, most worthy mounting stones;
Black timber in red brick, surprisingly placed
Where hill stone was looked for, and a manor's bones
Spied in the frame of some wisteria'd house,
And mill-falls and sedge-pools, and Saxon faces
Stream sources happened upon in unlikely places
And Roman looking hills of small degree.
The surprise, the good in dignity of poplars
At a roads end, or the white Cotswold scars.
Sheets spread out spotless against the hazel tree.
But toothless old men, bubbling over with jokes
And deadly serious once the speaking finished.
Beauty is less after all than strange comical folks
And the wonder of them never and never can become diminished. 

Lower Slaughter Walk and Summer Fete

When we moved to Oxford 6 years ago, I was so excited that we would be only an hour from London.  I envisioned weekly trips to the city to enjoy all the London has to offer.  Once here, I discovered that Oxford sits on the edge of the Cotswolds, an area of extraordinary natural beauty and stunning villages built from honey-colored stones that look frozen in time - like they have been completely bypassed by the twenty first century. While I love spending time in London and Oxford, it's the Cotswolds and the English countryside that truly entice me and just make my heart sing.

Charming and quaint villages are one of the hallmarks of the Cotswolds. While each village has its own flavor, most of them share a common aesthetic thanks to the gorgeous Cotswold stone they are built from. It is this same stone that makes Oxford so lovely. 

Once voted the "Most Beautiful Village in the Cotswolds” Lower Slaughter is a perfect example of a Cotswold town.  The history of this and most Cotswold villages is evident in striking wool churches and manor houses built by wealthy textile merchants. And the textile wealth was built, in large part, on the slave trade as ships sailed from English ports to Africa, then to the Americas and back to England, filled with cotton to be turned into textiles in the mills throughout England.  

From Wikipedia: "During the Middle Ages, thanks to the breed of sheep known as the Cotswold Lion, the Cotswolds became prosperous from the wool trade with the continent, with much of the money made from wool directed towards the building of churches. The area still preserves numerous large, handsome Cotswold Stone "wool churches".  This is St Mary's Church in Lower Slaughter, a13th century Anglican parish church located on the edge of the village. The present church of St Mary's was rebuilt in 1867 when the earlier church fell into dis-repair. 

The earliest record of the village's Old Mill is found in the Doomsday Book of 1086. In the 14th Century it had begun to be known as Slaughter Mill and by the 18th Century had become independent of the manorial estate. By the way, the name Slaughter has nothing to do with livestock  or butchery - the name stems from the Old English name for a wet land 'slough' or 'slothre', what we would call mud.

We came to Lower Slaughter on the last Bank Holiday (3-day weekend) Monday in August.  The village was all dressed up for it's village fair or fete, as they say here.  I love English village fairs and this one was just perfect.  My favorite part was the local dog show. Each dog was a winner.  While only one dog won a ribbon for "best in show", all of them got a bone.  Lots of happy dogs - that's my kind of dog show.

This was one of the games at the fair.  You pick a boat and let is sail down the little Eye stream that runs through the town.  These are the straggler boats at the end of the competition.  

The starting line for the boat race.

There are countless wonderful hiking trails throughout the Cotswolds and one of my favorites is the gentle, mile-long stroll between the twin villages of Upper and Lower Slaughter.  It's a perfect combination of Cotswold villages, rolling hills, lovely county manor houses and cottages, farms and countryside, and, of course, sheep.

The name Cotswold is popularly attributed the meaning "sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides", incorporating the term wold which means hills. I know it to mean one of my favorite places in England. I'll never grow tired of Cotswold wandering.  I hope to wander back to the Slaughters again soon and I especially hope to come to the Fete again next summer.  While I saw the dog show this year, I missed the first part, the puppy show.  I have to come back for that. 

Let me know if you have a favorite Cotswold village or walk.  I'd love to know about it. 

Great Tew and the Falkland Arms

About 35 miles northwest of Oxford is a charming Cotswold town of Great Tew.  In fact, there are three Tew villages: Great Tew, Duns Tew, and Little Dew. All are charming but Great Tew is my favorite.  The village, the landscape and the local 500-year-old pub could not be more picturesque.  

Great Tew is centered around a grand country Estate surrounded by archtypal thatched roof cottages. Spring lambs playing in rolling grassland, horses in the fields, woods with a carpet of bluebells, thatch cottages, a charming pub -- Great Tew is all this and much more. It's one of my favorite places for a country walk and a pub lunch.

The history of Great Tew goes back to the Roman times.  Click here or a brief historical time-line.  SInce the 1960's, the Estate has been owned and managed by the Johnston Family. The Estate enterprises include the in-hand farming operation, an ironstone quarry, the village, the grand estate grounds, and surrounding woods. 

The landscape around Great Tew is stunning. Like so many landscapes in England, it looks absolutely perfectly with every tree perfectly in place.  And, like such landscapes, it was deliberately designed and constructed by a landscape architect.  In this case it was 19th century landscape gardener, John Loudon, who designed this area as part of an extensive park overlooking the Worton Valley. 

 Great Tew is often referred to as a ‘picture book’ Cotswold village because of its thatched cottages and gabled roofs, mullioned windows and colorful gardens and farmland. However, it isn't crowded with tourists like so many other Cotswold villages. In part, that is why I like it so much. 

Great Tew is also home to one of my all-time favorite pubs -- The Falkland Arms. It's a beautiful 16th Century building which has been a traditional, local pub in some form for over 500 years.   

The Pub has flagstone floors, oak beams, ceilings covered with a enormous collection of beer steins, and an inglenook fireplace that has a fire burning in winter.  In warmer weather there is seating in a beautiful garden where you can enjoy the stunning surroundings.

If you are looking for a quintessentially charming English village with one of the most delightful pubs around, you won't won't be disappointed with the village of Great Tew and the Falkland Arms. 

Here is a link to one of my favorite country walks that starts and ends in Great Tew: http://www.theaa.com/walks/the-village-of-great-tew-a-rare-plot-420807