The Cotswolds – Lynn's Travel Adventures

I didn’t get this posted last night because the internet connection at the Doubletree in Cheltenham is pretty awful and it was taking FOREVER to upload pictures. By the time that was done, it was after 11pm and I was too tired to actually write the post.

Anyway, we left Wales yesterday morning and headed straight for the Cotswolds, the fairytale region of England. The Cotswolds is very large covering a 40 mile by 90 mile area so we’re only seeing a tiny piece of it.

Here’s a YouTube video about the area if you’re interested. If not feel free to skip it.

Our first stop was Sudeley Castle, a medieval castle (construction started in 1443) that has quite a storied history. It was owned by two kings, Edward IV and Richard III. The latter is the hunchbacked King that was found buried in a car park in Leicester.

A model of what the castle originally looked like.

This part of the Castle is still in good shape.

Another view of the intact portion of the Castle.

This is the not so intact part of the Castle. This part dates to the Tudor times.

Henry VIII and his then wife Anne Boleyn visited in 1535 and Henry’s final wife Catherine Parr. After Henry died, Catherine secretly married Thomas Seymour who was the Baron of Sudeley. She died there after giving birth to a daughter and is buried in the Chapel. BTW. Thomas was executed for treason 6 months later as was his brother who had inherited the Castle. It then reverted to the crown.

Tomb of Catherine Parr. She’s the only former Queen to have been buried on private land. Her original grave site was lost to history until they found her in 1782. She was reburied in the Chapel at that time.

The Becket window depicts the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. It is believed that William, the brother of Baron de Sudeley, was one of the knights that murdered Becket. We saw the site of the murder when we were in Canterbury. It’s so cool to see how all of the places we’re seeing tie together in British history.

They have a large exhibition with artifacts of the people who lived there. Here are a couple from Catherine Parr.

Locket contains some of her hair. Henry VIII touched that hair….so very cool.

The two pieces of jewelry belonged to Catherine and the thing on the left is a piece of her tooth.

Queen Elizabeth I visited the Castle 3 times during her reign, once for a 3-day party held in her honor. That’s when the current owner landscaped the gardens There are 10 gardens covering 15 acres on the 1200 acre estate.

This was a cool greenery sculpture of QEI in what had been her bedroom during that house party. Unfortunately, that part of the Castle has been lost to time.

Moving on in time, during the English Civil War (1642-1651) the owner was a royalist and, at one time, housed part of the Royal army at the castle. King Charles I lived there for a time.

Waistcoat worn by King Charles I. As you may remember from earlier posts, this war did not end well for Charles.

In WWII, the Castle was used to store the artwork from the Tate Gallery.

The Castle is still the private residence of Lady Ashcombe and her kids. We were able to tour the residential part of the Castle, but like at Highclere, we weren’t allowed to take photos.

Part of the grounds is now a Peasantry, where they have many different types of rare pheasants.

All in all, we spent a very pleasant couple of hours at the Castle. Then we headed to Bourton-on-the-Water which is usually listed on the prettiest of the Cotswold villages. It really is beautiful but because of that distinction, it was crazy crowded. It has a population of less than 3400 people and there had to have been half that again in this 3 block long section of town.

The town center is on the River Windrush.

This is the fairy tale style buildings found all over the Cotswolds. Very pretty.

Looking down the river to one of the several footbridges across the river.

We had lunch at one of the pubs. Peter took a walk on the wild side and switched from a burger to BBQ chicken, which he said was delicious. I tried a steak and ale pie, which while good, does not beat my favorite pie from the Red Lion. The Brits have a thing about peas, either whole like this or mashed…eew. No surprise that these were still on my plate when I was done eating; I hate peas.

After lunch we headed a few miles up the road to Stow-on-the -Wold, another one of the prettier villages in the area. It was founded by Norman lords as a market town. One of the last battles of the Civil War was held about a mile north of here.

This wasn’t nearly as crowded but it also wasn’t nearly as pretty.

We visited St. Edwards Church while we were there.

There was some beautiful stained glass windows. This one was over the main door in the Nave.

We spent less than an hour at Stow before heading to Cheltenham for the Doubletree. Airbnb flats are much more expensive than the last time we were in Europe, which is why we’re spending more nights than usual in hotels.

Today, we’re heading off to Churchill’s ancestorial home, Blenheim Palace. Then maybe to one of the other Castles listed on the “Most Beautiful Castles in the Cotswolds” list. We’ll see how much time we have.

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