Around Oxford
From Oxford, it’s a short trip west to the Cotswolds and a brief haul south to both the Vale of White Horse and the Chiltern Hills. Nearer still – a brief bus ride north – is the charming little town of Woodstock and its imperious neighbour, Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill.
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Blenheim Palace
In 1704, as a thank-you for his victory over the French at the Battle of Blenheim, Queen Anne gave
John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough
(1650–1722) the royal estate of Woodstock, along with the promise of enough cash to build himself a gargantuan palace.
Work started promptly on Blenheim Palace with Sir John Vanbrugh, who was also responsible for Castle Howard in Yorkshire as principal architect. However, the duke’s formidable wife, Sarah Jennings, who had wanted Christopher Wren, was soon at loggerheads with Vanbrugh, while Queen Anne had second thoughts, stifling the flow of money. Construction work was halted and the house was only finished after the duke’s death at the instigation of his widow, who ended up paying most of the bills and designing much of the interior herself. The end result is the country’s grandest example of Baroque civic architecture, an Italianate palace of finely worked yellow stone that is more a monument than a house – just as Vanbrugh intended.
The interior of the main house is stuffed with paintings and tapestries, plus all manner of objets d’art, including furniture from Versailles and carvings by Grinling Gibbons. Those interested in Winston Churchill may prefer the Churchill Exhibition, which provides a brief introduction to the man, accompanied by live recordings of some of his more famous speeches. Born here at Blenheim, Churchill (1874–1965), grandson of the seventh Duke of Marlborough, now lies buried alongside his wife in the graveyard of Bladon church just outside the estate.
Blenheim Gardens
Blenheim’s formal gardens, to the rear of the house, are divided into several distinct areas, including a rose garden and an arboretum, though the open parkland is more enticing, leading from the front of the house down to an artificial lake, Queen Pool. Vanbrugh’s splendid Grand Bridge crosses the lake to the Column of Victory, erected by Sarah Jennings and topped by a statue of her husband posing heroically in a toga.
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Woodstock
WOODSTOCK, eight miles north of Oxford, has royal associations going back to Saxon times, with a string of kings attracted by its excellent hunting. The Royalists used Woodstock as a base during the Civil War, but, after their defeat, Cromwell never got round to destroying either the town or the palace: the latter was ultimately given to (and flattened by) the Duke of Marlborough in 1704 when work started on the building you see today. Long dependent on royal and then ducal patronage, Woodstock is now both a well-heeled commuter town for Oxford and a base for visitors to Blenheim. It is also an extremely pretty little place, its handsome stone buildings gathered around the main square, at the junction of Market and High streets.
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The Chiltern Hills
The Chiltern Hills extend southwest from the workaday town of Luton, beside the M1, bumping across Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire as far as the River Thames. At their best, the hills offer handsome countryside, comprising a band of forested chalk hills with steep ridges and deep valleys interrupted by easy, rolling farmland. Henley-on-Thames is the draw, a pleasant riverside town within easy striking distance of the area’s key attractions and with a reasonable range of accommodation. Nearby highlights include the village of Cookham, home to the fascinating Stanley Spencer Gallery. West of the Chilterns, the Ridgeway National Trail offers splendid hiking amongst the more open scenery of the Berkshire and Oxfordshire downs, especially in the Vale of White Horse.
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Henley Royal Regatta
Henley is best known for its Royal Regatta, established in 1839 and now the world’s most important amateur rowing tournament. The regatta, featuring past and potential Olympic rowers, begins on the Wednesday before the first weekend in July and runs for five days. Further information is available from the Regatta Headquarters on the east side of Henley Bridge (t 01491 572153, w hrr.co.uk).
The Cotswolds
The limestone hills that make up the Cotswolds are preposterously photogenic, dotted with a string of picture-book villages, many of them built by wealthy cloth merchants between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Largely bypassed by the Industrial Revolution, which heralded the area’s commercial decline, much of the Cotswolds is technically speaking a relic, its architecture beautifully preserved. Numerous churches are decorated with beautiful carving, for which the local limestone was ideal: soft and easy to carve when first quarried, but hardening after long exposure to the sunlight.
The Cotswolds have become one of the country’s main tourist attractions, with many towns afflicted by plagues of tearooms and souvenir and antiques shops – this is Morris Dancing country. To see the Cotswolds at their best, you should visit off season or perhaps avoid the most popular towns and instead escape into the hills themselves, though even in high season the charms of towns like Chipping Campden – “Chipping” as in ceapen, the Old English for market – Burford and Northleach are evident.
As for walking, this might be a tamed landscape, but there’s good scope for exploring the byways, either in the gentler valleys that are most typical of the Cotswolds or along the dramatic escarpment that marks the boundary with the Severn Valley. The Cotswold Way national trail runs for a hundred miles along the edge of the Cotswold escarpment from Chipping Campden in the northeast to Bath in the southwest, with a number of prehistoric sites providing added interest along the route. The section around Belas Knap is particularly rewarding, offering superb views over Cheltenham and the Severn Valley to the distant Malverns.
The Cotswolds is part of the Great West Way route – find out more about outdoor activities and tips for your stay.
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Cheltenham
Prior to the eighteenth century CHELTENHAM was like any other small-time Gloucestershire town, until the discovery of a spring in 1716 transformed it into Britain’s most popular spa. During Cheltenham’s heyday, a century or so later, the royal, the rich and the famous descended in droves to take the waters, which were said to cure anything from constipation to worms. These days, the town has a lively, bustling atmosphere, lots of good restaurants and some of England’s best-preserved Regency architecture. The town is also a thriving arts centre, famous for its festivals of folk (Feb), jazz (April/May), science (June), classical music (July) and literature (Oct) and, of course, the races.
Cheltenham Races
Cheltenham racecourse, on the north side of town, a ten-minute walk from Pittville Park at the foot of Cleeve Hill, is Britain’s main steeplechasing venue. The principal event of the season, the three-day National Hunt Festival in March, attracts 40,000 people a day; it’s essential to buy tickets in advance. Other meetings take place in January, April, October, November and December: a list of fixtures is posted at the tourist office. For the cheapest but arguably the best view, pay £8 (rising to £15 during the Festival, £25 on Gold Cup Day) for entry to the Best Mate Enclosure, as the pen in the middle is known.
Chipping Campden
On the northern edge of the Cotswolds, CHIPPING CAMPDEN gives a better idea than anywhere else in the Cotswolds as to how a prosperous wool town might have looked in the Middle Ages. The short High Street is hemmed in by ancient houses, with an undulating line of weather-beaten roofs above and twisted beams and mullioned windows below. The seventeenth-century Market Hall has survived too, an open-sided pavilion propped up on sturdy stone piers in the middle of the High Street, where farmers once gathered to sell their produce. The town also served as a crucible for the burgeoning Cotswolds Arts and Crafts movement, largely thanks to the pioneering work of C. R. Ashbee.
Cirencester
Self-styled “Capital of the Cotswolds”, the affluent town of CIRENCESTER lies on the southern fringes of the region, midway between Oxford and Bristol. As Corinium, it became a provincial capital and a centre of trade under the Romans. The town flourished for three centuries, and even had one of the largest forums north of the Alps, but the Saxons destroyed almost all of the Roman city, and the town only revived with the wool boom of the Middle Ages. Few medieval buildings other than the St John the Baptist church have survived, however, and the houses along the town’s most handsome streets – Park, Thomas and Coxwell – date mostly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Today Cirencester’s heart is the delightful, swirling Market Place, packed with traders’ stalls on Mondays and Fridays.
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Northleach
Secluded in a shallow depression some ten miles north of Cirencester, NORTHLEACH is one of the most appealing and least developed villages in the Cotswolds – a great base to explore the area. Rows of immaculate late medieval cottages cluster around the village’s Market Place with more of the same framing the adjoining Green; the most outstanding feature is the handsome church of St Peter and St Paul, erected at the height of the wool boom.
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Gloucester
For centuries life was good for GLOUCESTER, just ten miles west of Cheltenham. The Romans chose this spot for a garrison to guard the River Severn, while in Saxon and Norman times the Severn developed into one of the busiest trade routes in Europe. The city became a major religious centre too, but from the fifteenth century onwards a combination of fire, plague, civil war and increasing competition from rival towns sent Gloucester into a decline from which it never recovered – even the opening of a new canal in 1827 between Gloucester and Sharpness to the south failed to revive the town’s dwindling fortunes.
Today, the canal is busy once again, though this time with pleasure boats, and the Victorian docks have undergone a facelift, offering a fascinating glimpse into the region’s industrial past. The main reason for a visit, however, remains Gloucester’s magnificent cathedral, one of the finest in the country.
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The Cathedral
The superb condition of Gloucester
Cathedral
is striking in a city that has bulldozed so much of its history. The Saxons founded an abbey here, but four centuries later, in 1089, Benedictine monks arrived intent on building their own church; work began in 1089. As a place of worship it shot to importance after the murder of King Edward II in 1327: Bristol and Malmesbury supposedly refused to take his body, but Gloucester did, and the king’s shrine became a major place of pilgrimage. The money generated helped finance the conversion of the church into the country’s first and greatest example of the
Perpendicular style
: the magnificent 225ft tower crowns the achievement.
Beneath the reconstructions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, some Norman aspects remain, best seen in the nave, which is flanked by sturdy pillars and arches adorned with immaculate zigzag carvings. The choir provides the best vantage point for admiring the east window completed in around 1350 and – at almost 80ft tall – the largest medieval window in Britain, a stunning cliff face of stained glass. Beneath it, to the left (as you’re facing the east window) is the tomb of Edward II, immortalized in alabaster and marble. Below the east window lies the Lady Chapel, whose delicate carved tracery holds a staggering patchwork of windows. The innovative nature of the cathedral’s design can also be appreciated in the beautiful cloisters, completed in 1367 and featuring the first fan vaulting in the country –used to represent the corridors of Hogwart’s School in the Harry Potter films.
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