May 22, 2018
We are at the Old Stocks Inn in Stow-on-the-Wold in the Cotswolds. Oh. My. Gosh. We are up three winding staircases, through two fire doors, down two hallways, and the door has a real lock and key. There is no air conditioning and there are several low beams that have to be navigated around in order to move in the room. There is not a level surface in the entire building. IT IS THE BEST! This inn was built in the 1600s. It has been updated and decorated perfectly. It is somehow both ancient and fresh and cool.
We started the day leaving Bath and actually saw entire neighborhoods and areas that we missed yesterday, including a lawn so steep that it has to be kept trimmed by sheep.
If the drive from London to Bath is similar to Middle Tennessee the drive from Bath to the Cotswolds is more like East Tennessee. It is hilly, windy, rural, and very green. We briefly toured Avebury, which is a village built inside a Henge (earthen circle with ancient stones, because druids), but we did not walk the entire Henge because there were too many other cool things to see.
From there we drove to Castle Coombe which was initially built in medieval times. The market square still stands just as it did a century ago.
Then to Lacock Village, which has been used in movies and is the village seen in Downton Abbey. Harry Potter was filmed (a few scenes) at Lacock Abbey. We met the curator who was from Cookeville. The gardens were beautiful although we were a little early for the giant peonies to bloom. This served as an abbey until Henry VIII, but then became a manor house and a family home. I don’t care how rich you are or how important you are, you can’t make a medieval abbey into a comfortable family home. It was beautiful, but I can’t imagine having lived there.
We added the village of Bilbury which was a center of the wool market and an original example of cottage industry. Farmers raised sheep for wool. Their wives wove the wool into cloth and then washed it in the River Colne, then they took it to Fulling Mill and from there to market in the center of town. Henry Ford tried to buy all the cottages as an example of industriousness. England said no.
Then to Burford, another beautiful village featuring an ancient church complete with 17th century graffiti and gunshot holes in the wall from where Cromwell assassinated deserters.
We had a great dinner at the Kings Arms in Stow On The Wold and made friends with a couple from Australia who are doing a farewell tour of their children and siblings. The lively, fun lady has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s so she is going out big while she can. They were great.
The Cotswolds don’t have the big historic monuments, but they are real and timeless and so pleasant just to walk around in. I keep thinking that there is nothing to top the day before, and yet each day has been perfect in its own way.