Stow-on-the-Wold is a delightful market town with population around  2000 residents and along with Moreton-in-Marsh, perhaps the best known of the small Cotswolds towns.

 

At the height of the Cotswold wool industry the town was famous for its huge annual fairs where as many as 20,000 sheep were sold at one time!

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The Market Square reminds to the visitors about the town’s former importance. At one end stands the ancient cross, and at the other - the town stocks beneath old elm trees. Around the square the visitor is faced with an elegant array of Cotswold town houses and shops. The town bursts with a wonderful choice of restaurants, bistros and tea shops to choose from including wide selection of pubs.

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A Farmers Market is held in The Square on 2nd Thursday of each month, 9am to 1pm. Visit St Edward's church - built between 11th  and 15th  century, steeped in history, with amazing stained glass windows.

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Tip: parking in Stow could be a bit difficult due to its popularity with visitors. If there’s lack of parking on Market Square or on Sheep Street/Park Street, we recommend free public long stay parking near TESCO – it’s only 5-7mins walk to the Market Square.

Chipping Campden is one of the loveliest small towns in the Cotswolds and a gilded masterpiece of limestone and craftsmanship. The main street curves in a shallow arc lined with a succession of ancient houses each grafted to the next but each with its own distinctive embellishments.

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As the name suggests ("Chipping" means market or market place from the old English "Ceping"), Chipping Campden was one of the most important of the medieval wool towns and famous throughout Europe. This legacy of fame and prosperity is everything that gave the town its character.

Chipping Campden has become known for its unusual and attractive High Street, said by G.M. Trevelyan (English Historian) to be "the most beautiful village street now left on the island". 

The High Street is long and broad, and is flanked on either side by an almost unbroken single terrace, made up of many different architectural styles.

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The ancient Market Hall was built in 1627 by Sir Baptist Hicks for a cost of £90.00. It was for the purpose of giving shelter to the local market selling cheese, butter and poultry - not wool as is sometimes thought. 

Classified as a village, Broadway is well worth a whole day visit.

 

It is often referred to as the 'Jewel of the Cotswolds' and the 'Show Village of England' because of its sheer beauty and magnificence. The 'broad way' leads from the foot of the western Cotswolds escarpment with a wide grass-fringed street lined with ancient honey coloured limestone buildings dating back to the 16th century and earlier (the oldest house is Abbots Grange built in 1320 as the summer retreat for the Abbots of Pershore).

 

Many well known characters have spent time in Broadway drawing inspiration from its beauty and location including Oscar Wilde, Claude Monet, Edwin Abbey, John Singer-Sargent, William Morris and Edward Elgar.

 

The full extent of Broadway's majesty is its wide street lined with a delightful mix of Tudor, Stuart and Georgian buildings. Abbots Grange house dating to the 14th century, is the oldest domestic building in the village and one of the oldest in the country. There are Tudor Houses dating from 1660's and along with parts of the Lygon Arms Hotel and St. Eadburgha's (granddaughter of King Alfred the Great) Church which has been a place of worship for almost 1000 years. The old church is one mile out on Snowshill Road.

 

The village's "broad way" (actually called High Street - one of the longest High Streets in England) lined with red chestnut trees, reflects the varied architectural history from grand Georgian buildings to ones of humbler though quaint beginnings that even reaches back, in places, to the Romans.

Snowshill village sits on the top of the escarpment above the villages of Broadway, Buckland, and Laverton. It is a secluded village where ancient pretty cottages and a 19th century church cluster around a small green. As its name implies - if there is any snow about then you will find it here first.

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Snowshill is renowned for its manor house, now administered by the National Trust. It is interesting architecturally as a typical 15th to 16th century manor house, with a good dovecote. The beautiful gardens are terraced and were designed by Charles Wade. On the site is a teashop and restaurant.

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Here in Snowshill you will find ancient charm and peaceful ambling with refreshments to be had at the Snowshill Arms pub.

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The romantic comedy ‘Bridget Jones's Diary’ (2000), starring Renee Zellweger as a 30-something singleton living in London on a quest to find Mr Right, included scenes shot in the picturesque Snowshill.

In the film, which also starred Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, the village known locally as "Snozzle" provided the location for Bridget Jones's parent's home where she first meets Mark Darcy (Firth) at Christmas.

Moreton-in-Marsh is one of the principal market towns in the Northern Cotswolds situated on the Fosse Way and now served by the main line railway from London Paddington. It grew up in the 13th century as a market town with a wide main street, narrow burgage plots and back lanes.

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Many of the old buildings along the High Street date from the 17th  and 18th centuries.

 

There are several pubs, inns, hotels, tea shops, restaurants and accommodation in the form of B&Bs and holiday cottages in the immediate vicinity.

 

The White Hart (Royal) Hotel was used by King Charles I as shelter during the English Civil War following the Battle of Marston Moor on July 2, 1644. A copy of the King’s unpaid bill is commemorated on a plaque within the entrance lobby.

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Close to the town is the Four Shires Stone marking the historic meeting point of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.

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Moreton-in-Marsh was granted its market charter in 1227 and the well known Market is still held every Tuesday throughout the year.

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The Batsford Arboretum which is about 2 miles away from the town is one of the largest private collections of rare trees in England.

The ancient Anglo Saxon town of Winchcombe is situated in a beautiful Cotswold valley mid-way between Broadway and Cheltenham.

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The name Winchcombe means 'valley with a bend', and today the town still retains street which curve gracefully along the 'combe'.

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The inns, restaurants, tea rooms, and shops set among Winchcombe's three main streets are full of the character of times past.

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In the early 1600's the Winchcombe area was known for tobacco growing and was banned in 1619 due to the vested interest of the industry in America and other colonies.

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St. Peters church – built in 1465 - is guarded by forty of the country's finest grotesque gargoyles. The church has an unusually fine weather cock measuring nearly 6 feet from beak to tail. Originally at the Church of St. Mary, Redcliffe in Bristol, it came to Winchcombe in 1872.

Cheltenham is the most complete Regency town in Britain and one of the few English towns in which traditional and contemporary architecture complement each other.

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From humble beginnings as a modest market town, Cheltenham became one of the most fashionable health resorts in the country. In 1716, in a meadow outside the town, pigeons were found to be pecking at what turned out to be salt crystals at a spring which led to the establishment of the town as a Spa. The importance of the pigeons leading to the discovery of the 'Spa Waters' is reflected in three pigeons being included in the Cheltenham Coat of Arms.

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The principal street of Cheltenham is the Promenade with its fine regency terraces and Neptune Fountain. Montpellier is where Cheltenham's elite reside. Here, small boutiques jostle for space with wine bars and restaurants such as Brasserie Blanc, Raymond Blanc's informal spin-off of Le Manoir at Oxford.

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The centrepiece is the Montpellier Gardens, blooming with flowers and containing a fountain surmounted by a bespectacled Gustav Holst, who was born in Cheltenham and now stands with his baton raised aloft above the water jets.

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Cheltenham is world famous for its horse racing course at Prestbury Park and the main hurdles event being the Gold Cup National Hunt Festival week in March.

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The Cheltenham music festival in July is your chance to chill out in the British summer heat (rain).

Bourton-on-the-Water has been described as the 'Little Venice' of the Cotswolds and is one of the most popular tourist spots in the region being serviced by the many shops, cafe's, and attractions.

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The village straddles the river Windrush with its series of elegant low bridges beside neat tree-shaded greens and tidy stone banks. Standing back from the river are traditional Cotswolds buildings, many of which are now tourist shops for the day-trippers and visitors.

All touristic attractions in Bourton would generate an interest not only adults but children too. 

 

Birdland is an authentic zoo for birds, with a remarkable collection of penguins, some of which have come from the owner's islands in the South Atlantic. Established by the late Len Hill and is also home to a huge variety of exotic birds.

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Model Village - Excellent miniature of Bourton using authentic building materials depicting Bourton-on-the-Water as it was in 1937 at 1/9th scale.

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Cotswold Motoring Museum & Toy Collection - Overflowing with vintage car collections, classic cars and motorcycles, caravans, original enamel signs and an intriguing collection of motoring curiosities also home to Brum, the adventurous four-wheeled hero of children's TV.