Our collective obsession has tarnished the Cotswolds – unless you know where to go
So Taylor Swift is, reportedly, hunkering down in the Chipping Norton area this summer, escaping fans between gigs by renting a £3,000-a-night “secret” property. What a smart move, in all senses. She gets to enjoy picturesque peace and also taps into the British obsession that is the Cotswolds. But what is it with this area of central England – why the fixation, no longer only national but now global? From celebs descending, to residents in some honey-stone villages complaining of “overtourism”, no other part of the country seems to get quite such top billing and effusive attention.
In the decade-plus since I moved to the area, the Cotswolds has become palpably wealthier, with house prices shooting up and the array of high-end hotels ever raising the bar on levels of luxury (with cinemas, exclusive-use spas, dinner dishes created to personal order, and more). For my money, it’s all down to a trio of factors: accessibility; beauty – that mellow, time-warp landscape complete with golden-hued villages; and a follow-the-crowd fixation with the famous, who add stardust and cool.
How did it all begin? With sheep. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest recorded use of the noun “Cotswold” was in the mid-1500s, although the term (from “cots”, meaning animal pen, and “wold”, for hilly land) is probably far older. An area pretty much in the heart of England, it was within easy reach of London, the Midlands and Bristol; still is, of course. At about the time “Cotswold” first cropped up as a written word, the wool trade was at its height in the area, the riches giving rise to the creation of huge, handsome manor houses – which today make glamorous hotels and fabulous homes of the illustrious, or at least the super-rich.
Of course, members of the Royal Family also owned estates, from Sudeley Castle to Woodstock Palace, which was a precursor to the gargantuan Blenheim edifice. In pockets this was an area for the glitterati: in 1681 Charles II took his court to Burford, mainly to go to the horse races at the then flourishing course five miles from the little town.
Artists arrived. In the 19th century, William Morris rented Broadway Tower as an eccentric holiday home and leased the 17th-century manor house at Kelmscott.
Yet in the first part of the 20th century the Cotswolds was a hinterland. Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie tells of rural poverty in the Slad valley in the 1920s. Concurrently, and at the other end of the social scale, the Mitford sisters were living in the northern Cotswolds; while the youngest, “Debo”, loved the area, Jessica and the others often referred to their village, Swinbrook, as Swinebrook and saw it as a dismal backwater.
Even in the 1980s there was a lack of sophistication; a friend in Moreton-in-Marsh remembers how there was just the one decent restaurant in the area then, the Marsh Goose (an ASK Italian outlet now stands in its place but there are plenty more foodie options). So when did the Cotswolds acquire its contemporary cachet?
The founding of Carole Bamford’s exquisitely expensive Daylesford Organic farm shop in 2002 ushered in not so much gentrification as monied chic. In the same year, Cowley Manor hotel near Cheltenham was opened, delighting critics with its new brand of funky stylishness. Fast-forward to 2015 when the opening of spectacularly bucolic Soho Farmhouse confirmed the Cotswolds as the ultimate English playground.
The region had quietly attracted several people in the public eye, the likes of Pam Ayres and Jilly Cooper, but now celebrities bought into the Cotswolds seemingly in droves; among them, Amanda Holden in 2012, the Beckhams in 2016, and Simon Cowell in 2021. The burgeoning summer festivals added a big measure of hip, too: Wilderness in Cornbury Park and The Big Feastival, on the farm of Blur bass guitarist Alex James, both started in 2011.
But has the impact of all this tarnished the Cotswolds? Has it become too traipsed, too commercial? That largely depends on where you choose to go. It’s as if there are parallel universes in the Cotswolds. Avoid the honey traps such as Stow-on-the-Wold, Burford, Bibury and Bourton-on-the-Water (where in May this year residents hit the headlines as they remonstrated against tourist hordes and parking chaos) and it is perfectly possible to reach implausibly pretty, pin-drop-quiet villages, often hidden down tiny, meandering lanes.
My neighbour, Elaine, now in her 60s, has lived near Chipping Norton all her life and was equivocal when I asked her about tourism, remarking that while our village is still “lovely and tranquil”, much as it has been for a great many decades, the village pub is a different story. It was sold and refurbished several years ago and is now a sleek and upscale venue like so many others in the area. “That’s a great shame for the local community,” she said.
Conversely, for Sue Heady, a former London PR exec who came to live in the Cotswolds 16 years ago, there are positives in that “the Cotswold type of high-end tourism has really upped the quality of pubs and restaurants, plus there’s a cosmopolitan, happening vibe in many places that used to be a bit drab”. But there’s a big negative, too. “The greatest change,” she said, “is the explosion of weekend and holiday lets, and this has destroyed the community in many villages. Suddenly you don’t have a next-door neighbour, just an endless stream of transient strangers.”
Meanwhile, on a bank or school holiday, anyone attempting to drive along the A361 just south of Chipping Norton will almost inevitably find themselves in a serious tailback, with parked cars strewn by the side of the road. Since the start of series three of Amazon Prime’s Clarkson’s Farm, the queues to Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat farm shop have become the stuff of hellish legend. Even so, some nearby residents are responding generously.
John Cull, a Cotswolds community champion, pointed out that while Farmer Clarkson is not exactly flavour of the month for many in the area, he is actually tuning into the local spirit “by rather brilliantly involving local characters: Kaleb, Gerald – these are real Cotswold people dealing with real issues.” But for true Cotswold identity, said Cull, there’s so much to enjoy away from the hotspot destinations, of which Diddly Squat has become a front runner. “If you’re curious, go exploring and talk to locals; you’ll get a feel for the soul of the Cotswolds,” he added.
Whether nearby Bourton-on-the-Water will be able to retain much soul remains to be seen. Clarkson is rumoured to be angling to run the Coach and Horses pub near the already overwhelmed village and opposite his Hawkstone brewery. Dating from the 18th century, the building is in poor shape, and Clarkson is purportedly keen to invest – and to support local farming by serving locally produced food. Reputedly the local council is worried that the approach roads wouldn’t cope. And, heck, is the car park large enough for an inexorable onslaught of vehicles?
Whatever the arguments and the outcome, the current concerns seem an outlandishly far cry from the Cotswolds’ pastoral, sheep-shaped past.
Update (July 11, 2024): Following the publication of this article, Jeremy Clarkson did buy a pub in the Cotswolds – though not the Coach and Horses, as had been rumoured, but The Windmill in Asthall Leigh, just outside Burford.
