The Cotswalds

The Cotswalds is a very charming nd picturesque area of limestone upland in southern England. It is about an hour and a half drive from London.  It is a range of hills that spans 25 miles across and 90 miles across. The area is known for it’s limestone streams that hold an abundnace of Brown Trout and large grayling fish.

This area is known for it’s many lakes that are fed by nutrient rich spring water from the mountains.The highest point is Cleeve Hill at 1,083 feet.  It lies mainly with Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire but the range of the Cotswald Hills also extends int Wiltshire, Somerset, Worcestershire and Warwickshire.  Towns in the area include Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadaway, Chipping Norton, Norhtleach, Stow-On-The Wold, Stroud and Winchcombe.

The meaning of the name is “shee enclosure in rolling hillsides” and that is exactly what you can expect to see as you roll thorugh the hills. The name goes way back to the eight centure A.D..  Cotswold wool has been making the area prosperous since the Middle Ages and many of the ancient churches you see in the area are called wool churches because they were built by people who got rich raising sheep and selling wool.

Many of the charming little villages in the area are built of Cotswold stone. This is a limestone with a yellow tint.  It is derived from fossilized sea urchins.  The villages are so quaint they look like they are growing out of the landscape.

The town of Chipping Camden in Cotswald is also notable for being the home of the Arts and Crafts Movement founded by William Morris at the end of the nineteenth century.

Another landmark in the area is the Broadway Tower. This is a  mock castle built out of yellow limestone near the village of Broadway in the English county of Worcesteshire.  The tower is fifty-five feet high. It was built in 1794 to resemble a mock castle and built by James Wyatt for his Lady Coventary.  The tower was used as a country retreat for artists in the 1880s including William Morris and Edward Bourne.

It is officially designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.  Of particuar note are the old growth beech woodlands that are typical in the area. There are also rare limestone grasslands in the area. One of the last remaining of these limestone grasslands ison Cleeve Hill and it’s commons.  These areas are also protected by the Cotswalds AONB which makes sure that the area is not polluted by agriclture or industrialized. It is also classified as a National Nature Reserve by the British government.