Cotswolds

August 9, 2015August 10, 2015

The Castles and Manors of South England and South Wales

The English countryside is studded with all manner of manor homes, castles, and palaces. Here are a few particularly memorable ones from my current swing through South England and South Wales.

In Victorian times, massive faux-castles were being built all over Britain by ridiculously rich nobles and aristocrats. Visiting Arundel Castle (just outside of Brighton, on England’s south coast), it occurred to me that many of our favorite castles are built on historic locations, but are mostly the 19th-century palaces of England’s “one percent.” And today, given the crippling taxes on both income and inheritances, many of these over-the-top properties can be maintained only by becoming part of the National Trust and charging a hefty entrance fee (around $25) for people to wander through their lavish private apartments.

This is Cardiff Castle’s original motte-and-bailey (keep on a mound). Arundel has the same kind of historic core. In both cases, the 11th-century original fort is almost like a garden ornament for a much bigger and more fanciful 19th-century Neo-Gothic palace.

One of my favorite noble manor houses to visit is Stanway House, in the Cotswolds. Like so many other rural mansions, it’s open to the public to help pay the bills. I’ve become friends with the lord here. For a decade I knew him as Lord Neidpath. Then he inherited a different title, and now he’s the Earl of Wemyss. (I never know exactly what to call him.) He’s fascinating to chat with; he always has creative projects in the works and cares deeply (in a nobleman’s way) for England.

About 15 years ago, I filmed the Earl of Wemyss on a shoot in the Cotswolds, and he ended up having a pretty big part in one of our shows. He had never seen the show. But now, each and every one of my more than 100 TV shows is available to view, free and in its entirety, on my website. You can watch them any time, any place…even in a decaying old manor house deep in England’s Cotswolds. So I had the joy of showing the Earl of Wemyss his charming performance, that you can watch here.

If an English girl’s soldier was coming home from World War I and she wanted to get her hair curled, she’d head on down to “Curl Up & Dye” — the Brits love to name their shops with goofy puns — and climb into this contraption (which I saw in a museum in Chepstow, in the Cotswolds).

August 23, 2010November 22, 2013

Travel Tip: Take a Hike

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I just spent 10 days in a car exploring Britain. I forgot to note the mileage, but I started in London, scoured the Cotswolds, toured North Wales, and then drove up north to the Windermere Lake District (near Keswick), before returning to London. Total cost for diesel: Â£120 (about $185).

For the first time, I really took time to hike in the Cotswolds and the Lake District. And when I think back on the highlights of the last 10 days, those hikes were it. Nothing too demanding — just hiking through farmland from Stow-on-the-Wold through the Slaughters to Bourton-on-the-Water and back in the Cotswolds; and up along Catbells, high above the lake called Derwentwater in the Lake District.

The point: I can’t imagine a better way to spend three hours in a day. Every day has three hours to spare. What else is so important between 4 o’clock and dinnertime? With these walks, I take home vivid memories.

In the Cotswolds: farms in action viewed from behind, ducks rudely butt-up in millponds, rabbits popping up in fields like some video game challenge, ancient wind-sculpted trees, wet and slippery kissing gates, and slender slate church spires marking distant villages where a hot cuppa tea awaits.

In the Lake District, I struggled up and over Catbells — a ridge walk I’ve recommended for years (and felt guilty having never actually hiked). The weather almost kept me in. But I was glad I ventured out — the wind “blowing the cobwebs out” (as my B&B host warned) once atop Catbells ridge, the comedic baa-ing of sheep, being the stick figure on the ridge for those observing from distant farms or boats on the lake…as others have always been the stick figures for me.

And, oh, the joy of a pub after a good hike. Studying the light on ruddy faces while sipping the local brew in a pub has always been part of the magic of travel in Britain. When your face is weather-stung and your legs ache happily with accomplishment, the pub ambience sparkles even better.

About the weather: In Britain, you don’t wait for the weather to get good. Blustery weather is part of the scene. Consider it a blessing. The majority of “bad weather” comes with broken spells of brightness. Don’t get greedy — you wish for and are thankful for brightness, not sunshine. As they say here, there’s no bad weather…just inappropriate clothing. And if you’re in a hiking area and your clothing is inappropriate, your B&B host can likely loan you a heavy coat (along with the best local map).

Hiking along the ridge, with the weather — like a dark army — storming overhead, the wind buffeting in my ears, my camera bulging but dry under my coat, and a commanding 360-degree lakes view…makes me want to turn cartwheels.

May 21, 2010November 8, 2011

Ferret Legging and Rustic Pubs: Escaping the Cotswold Cliches

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To commemorate the Smithsonian Presents Travels with Rick Steves magazine — now on sale online, and at newsstands nationwide — Rick is blogging about the 20 top destinations featured in that issue. One of those destinations is England’s Cotswolds.

For three decades, I’ve said it’s a temptation for a travel writer to overuse the word “quaint,” and I reserve my use of that word to describe England’s Cotswold villages. The Cotswolds — while a world apart from London — are just a couple of hours’ drive away. This tidy little region of characteristic old towns is perfect for the American traveler looking to balance urban Britain with some thatched cuteness.

Each of Europe’s famous cutesy regions has a historical basis for its present-day charm. For the Cotswolds, it’s a combination of old sheep wealth (big fancy manor houses, gorgeous churches, and stately market towns — all paid for by wool) and isolation. The Cotswolds have been isolated from the rest of England both economically (since the wool trade collapsed) and physically (highway and train service to the region is sparse, making it a kind of backwater that missed the modern economic current).

Of course, these poster-child-pretty English villages are very touristy. And, as in just about any much-promoted region (Germany’s Rhineland, Italy’s Tuscany, Ireland’s Ring of Kerry, France’s Provence), the tourist circuit is a well-trampled route, with parking lots big enough for buses, hotels that can accommodate 50-person tour groups, and huggable traffic-free villages.

The challenge, of course, is to get behind the touristy facade. I make a point to leave Wiesbaden on the Rhine, Greve in Tuscany, and Killarney in Ireland to the big-bus tourists. The towns to avoid in the Cotswolds are Bourton-on-the-Water and Broadway. But there are always alternatives without the aggressive promotional budgets and favor of the national tourist board.

To get beyond the cliches, travelers need to find the rough underbelly. I have an appetite for local scuttlebutt that isn’t promoted by the sanitized, politically correct tourist boards. Ditch the glossy brochures, and gossip with locals in the pubs. Asking a native over a pint about traditions that persist even in the touristy present, I was told of “ferret legging” as a way of testing the toughness of young lads. They’d make the young man put on a pair of baggy pants, tie off the cuffs, then insert two angry ferrets (little weasel-like creatures) who would fight it out inside the pants while he was wearing them. (I don’t know if this still happens…but the image has certainly stuck with me.)

Admittedly, most Cotswold residents who can afford to live in these cutesy towns are escapees from the big city. They’re wealthy and enjoying the idyllic English retirement of their dreams. But the lanes, cemeteries, thatches, and old churches have a plush and fragrant connection with their past.

Cemeteries in Cotswold churchyards are often built up over years of burials, leaving the path to the village church actually lower than the graveyard ground level. Tolkien-esque trees seem to grip old churches. In Stow-on-the-Wold, I swear the side door to the church — flanked by two ancient yew trees — was the sight of the classic “Behold I stand at the door and knock” scene.

In the touristy Cotswolds, spend some time in the less-pretty towns in the less-pretty pubs, and be sure to talk to locals. And if someone wants to drop a couple of angry ferrets down your trousers, buy them a pint and say, “After you.”