FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Cotswolds & Straford-upon-avon

Thursday 4 July 2019

Cotswolds & Straford-upon-avon

We were off to Straford-upon-avon, The Bard’s birthplace! Playwright Will Shakespeare needeth introduction not, verily even thine offspring knoweth him welleth?! OK, high brow gives me a headache. Communication evolves, but his influence on the English language and culture is undeniable.

The house where he was born still stands so we took the opportunity to inspect it. There were several sites to visit including Shakespeare’s birthplace, his new place, his school as well as Anne Hathaway’s cottage. We chanced upon this blog post which was helpful for us to plan our day. We arrived at Stratford-upon-Avon just after Shakespeares’ birthplace opening time. The village was still quiet and parking ample. Taking photographs was easy as there were few people to avoid! Walking through the pretty village with many Tudor buildings was delightful. It did get busy by the time we left with big tour buses arriving. We pre-purchased our ticketsonline to save time.

Shakespeare’s birthplace was remarkably intact despite Victorian modifications and additions. The museum dedicated to Shakespeare’s life and works was well done. There were staff dressed up at various points to help with information and to help vistors visualise aspects of life in that era. Shakespeare’s new place was the plot where Shakespeare bought a house for his family and where he lived until he died. The house itself was gone. As we were short of time, we didn’t visit his schoolroom, now the Guild Hall, nor Anne Hathaway’s house.

Classic tudor buildings

Shakespeare's schoolroom right next to the church

The house where Shakespeare was born on the street side

The house as seen from the back

Entrance to see the interior of the house

Furnished to show what it was like at the time

3 finger animal...

Short doorways

The site where Shakespeare's house was

Seats for free Shakespeare performances

We continued our drive towards Daylesford Organic Farm, where we stopped for lunch. The serving sizes were generous and the food fresh and delicious. The family had fun browsing through the produce section for our takeaway dessert to give us more time to explore the Cotswolds. A serious debate to choose between banana & custard versus strawberry & jersey cream saw the latter winning by a narrow margin.

The Cotswolds was an AONB or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It was challenging to decide upon the outstandingly beautiful villages to visit. The popular ones were obviously popular for a reason! However, we did not want to be stuck with throngs of people. After much googling and travel blog reading, we settled on The Slaughters, Bibury & Castle Combe.

We did wonder why 2 villages were named "Slaughter" and Mr Google revealed that it was not from many killings, but that rather the word stemmed from the Old English name for a wet land 'slough' or 'slothre' upon which the two villages lie. Brief vocabulary lesson done with, we parked at the quieter Upper Slaughter and embarked on our walk to Lower Sloughter. After proudly finding a parking spot for our LONG car in the tiny village, we realised that we had made a grave rookie error. We didn’t research where the starting point for the walk was! Reception in the area was poor not allowing us to utilise Google. The Albany luck came into play when a car parked in front us and out came a man with hiking boots, walking stick, and clothes that looked like it was straight from a camping store. More importantly, said man was armed with a compass. He knew where to go and set us on the right track!

We had been blessed with warm sunny weather thus far (touch wood!) and although the walk was pretty, it was a touch too hot! The children dipped their feet into the clear water of the river Eye to cool down once we arrived at Lower Slaughter. An Albany trip would not be complete without some sort of drama. We had a near miss with our walk back towards Upper Slaughter. We somehow took the wrong path and ended up walking in the wrong direction! Luckily Google knew where our car was which allowed Malcolm to get the car to collect the rest of the family. This post should perhaps be retitled "Thank you Google".

Our weary legs were given a rest on our drive to Bibury. An afternoon tea of scones with jam and clotted cream was most welcome by the whole family! We strolled around the picturesque village, fortunate that the visitors had thinned out as it was late in the day. Unforunately this also meant that we only drove through Castle Combe. Our difficulty in finding a parking spot did not help. The family reached a consensus that we had had our fill of areas of outstanding natural beauty and we drove back home towards out hotel in Bath.