Wednesday 14 August

An early healthy muesli breakfast at Art Cafe just after 7.00am so we had the first floor dining room to ourselves. Then the rain started. Easy at first so we got back to the hotel OK. By the time we wheeled back to the train station it was really coming down. The machine issued our pre-purchased tickets and we wait for the 9.23am to Hereford. Our seats were in carriage A but what we didn't realise was that there were 11 carriages In the Cross Country train. A big rush to get up the wet platform was interrupted when the doors started to close! Tony kept the door open while we got the bags on board. Then the doors opened and stayed that way for 2 minutes until the departure time. Silly people! (I tried putting another description in, but it got edited out by the blog app)

Moreton-in-Marsh station is small but very busy with lots of tourists milling around. We manage to get through to the exit where Richard from Cotswolds Guided Tours is waiting. A small group tour (maximum 7 clients) in a van with plenty of room for luggage. The focus of the tour was on getting away from the crowds to see places that buses etc. cannot reach. First stop was Broadway Tower, a folly constructed by landscape designer Capability Brown in 1798 for George William 6th Earl of Coventryby his wife Lady Coventry. It stands on the second highest hill in the Cotswolds at 312m and is 20m high. It was built on the site of a medieval signal fire hill. They still have red deer in the grounds.

Next stop was the village of Snowshill which has a church, a pub, a National Trust Manor House and a scattering of cottages. Very picturesque.

On to Stanway which is a hamlet and these days is just Stanway House & Fountain, St Peter's Church, and a cricket pitch with an unusual pavilion. Sir James (J. M.) Barrie, creator of Peter Pan was a frequent visitor to Stanway House in the 1920's with a group of friends including H. G. Wells. Barrie gifted the idiosyncratic pavilion to the local cricket club in 1925 after taking a hattrick of wickets in a game on the ground. The outfield would be a challenge to field on as is very uneven from the medieval ridge & furrow ploughing.

Stanway House is still a private residence but open to the public on selected days, and is known for the spectacular 91m fountain, the highest in England. The house has featured in many TV & film productions, including Father Brown (s5 ep5 The Labyrinth of the Minotaur).

Stanton is perhaps the best preserved Cotswolds village due to its benefactor Philip Stott, an engineer who made his fortune building cotton mills. He paid to renovate village homes, installed an electrical generator at his home Stanton Hall and then put in street lights with distinctive green glass, put an extension on the school etc. The cottages date back to the 16th Century and those with thatch now have a variety of straw animals on the ridge line including a wallaby, ducks and an owl. It would seem that modern thatchers want to make their work distinctive. The village is on the Cotswolds Way walking track, and walkers have a welcome rest and a drink perhaps, at the Mount Inn which sits on a hill overlooking the village.

At St Michael and All Angels Church we learn how the rich were interred above ground because of fears of being buried alive. A small air hole was also left so they could breathe. But unfortunately, as they were usually really deceased, the smell of decay would escape, hence the saying "Stinking Rich" which today has a slightly different connotation.

Thankfully the rain had mostly given up by lunchtime, so we enjoyed the afternoon. One of the more popular and commercial towns in the North Cotswolds is Broadway where we had lunch at the Crown & Trumpet Inn. Kathy tried a rhubarb cider which was quite sweet rather than being tart as one might expect. Ham and mustard sandwiches in the very typically rustic pub interior.

The final stop for the day was at Chipping Campden with its elegant terraced high street dating from the 14th to 17th Century. The Market Hall in the centre of the village was built in 1627 to provide shelter for sheep and merchants. It has a vaulted wooden roof typical of those times. Many of the civic buildings benefited from the generosity of Sir Baptist Hicks, a rich 17th century silk merchant. His home, Campden House, was unfortunately burnt down to prevent it falling into Parliamentarian hands during the Civil War of 1642 - 1651. From the gatehouse and few remaining outbuildings, it must have been a magnificent building.

We finished the day at the Queen's Head Inn which serves Donnington Beers and a very passable lamb shank with veggies dish. Donnington beers have been brewed locally for over 100 years at a brewery outside Stow in a building that looks for all the world like a 17th Century water mill, which is what it once was.