Norman rule, following the invasion of 1066, the Cotswolds remained a place of some importance in the country, with England’s capital being very briefly centred at Gloucester. A new phase of building began, evidence of which can still be seen today, particularly in the churches. Horton Court, a few yards off the route of the Cotswold Way, also dates from Norman times and is still in use.
The Domesday Survey of 1086 showed that the region was already largely cultivated, but with woodland covering much of the western escarpment. More clearings were made during the following centuries and the open fields then turned to extensive sheep pasture. ‘In Europe the best wool is English; in England the best wool is Cotswold.’ This saying held true throughout the Norman era, when sheep outnumbered people by four to one and exports of Cotswold wool increased accordingly.
The traditional animal of these vast sheep-walks was known as the Cotswold Lion, a breed of sheep ‘with the whitest wool, having long necks and square bodies’. These long necks were adorned with a shaggy woollen ‘mane’, which led to their nickname.
By the Middle Ages the wolds were almost entirely given over to grazing these sheep, and the wool masters used their great wealth to build some of the grand houses and elegant churches (complete with lavish stained glass and intricate carvings) that now form such a feature of the Cotswold Way. Chipping Campden owes both its charm and its architectural splendour to the wool masters; its church is a monument built on the proceeds of wool sales, as are those at Wotton-under-Edge and several other places along the route.
The decline in the export of raw wool began in the early 15th century with crippling taxes. (Revenue from wool at one time accounted for more than half of England’s fortune.) But this decline was partly addressed by the home manufacture of cloth, when the new masters of the Cotswolds were mill owners and middlemen who built fine houses for themselves in Painswick and the Stroud Valley, taking over from the sheep owners as financiers of a fresh spate of church building, creating a new middle class in the process.
The Civil War and the enclosures
In the 17th century the Civil War was fought here, as elsewhere, forcing a temporary halt in the fortunes that were being made. Along the escarpment several battle sites are passed on the Cotswold Way, among them a hilltop area still known today as the Battlefields, where the Battle of Lansdown was fought on 5 July 1643. At the other end of the walk, Campden House, next to Chipping Campden’s parish church, was taken as a garrison for Royalist troops, but when they left in 1645 they destroyed it by fire. Painswick’s church still bears signs of a Civil War skirmish, and one of the last of the battles was fought on the slopes of Dover’s Hill.
Between 1700 and 1840 large areas of open land were enclosed by Acts of Parliament, which brought about the countryside’s greatest change in appearance for hundreds of years. This was when drystone walls and hedges began to divide the wolds into the criss-cross grid patterns we see today. Large estates were planted with shelter belts for the raising of game birds, while the Cotswolds as a whole became much less dependent on sheep and turned instead to a broader agricultural base with arable land replacing the sheep-walks of old.
To all intents and purposes, this is the landscape explored by walkers of the Cotswold Way in the early years of the 21st century.
SOUTHBOUND
Chipping Campden to Bath
Stanton Reservoir (Stage 1)
INTRODUCTION
The official start or finish of the Cotswold Way on Chipping Campden High Street (photo: Lesley Williams)
To walk south along the Cotswold Way is to make a pilgrimage with Bath, its Regency splendour and the glory of its abbey, beckoning from afar. Although you may well have the prevailing wind in your face, this should be adequately compensated for by long views and sunshine on your brow. The southbound route is a little less strenuous than walking northward, where there’s rather more up than down, and – this is important – when you begin in Chipping Campden the essential harmony of the Cotswolds is with you from the very start.
Before setting out, time should be allowed to explore the town. There’s much to see and admire, to absorb and file away in memory and recall in other towns and villages along the way. Almost as soon as Campden is left behind there are long views to soak in, and the first of many walks along the escarpment, this time to Broadway Tower, then down to Broadway and up again before you reach Stanton and Stanway.
The escarpment is gained and lost countless times on the way to Bath, the first day or two offering a particular abundance of fresh excuses to descend to the plain and then climb up again. There are field paths, woodland trails, old drove-roads and saltways, green lanes and minor roads winding between hedgerows lively with sparrows and wrens, fragrant with honeysuckle in spring and early summer, and with huge panoramas across the plains.
From Stanway there’s an up-and-down stretch to the ruins of Hailes Abbey and across undulating farmland to Winchcombe, with its pretty cottages, village stocks and gargoyles round the church. After Winchcombe there’s Belas Knap (worth half an hour of anyone’s time), then on to the highest part of the whole route on Cleeve Common.
Cleeve Common leads to Leckhampton Hill, another lofty belvedere overlooking Cheltenham, with the eye-catching digit of the Devil’s Chimney jutting from a lower scarp terrace. South of Leckhampton is Crickley Hill, where history, in the form of a hill fort, lies partly exposed, and an observation platform provides an opportunity to look back a thousand years and more.
Between Crickley Hill and Cooper’s Hill the way crosses just below Birdlip, which sits astride the Roman route of the Fosse Way. Woods conceal the broadest views, but the approach to Cooper’s Hill still allows plenty to gaze at, with a soft light flooding through the trees. More woods stretch along the escarpment, but the way emerges onto Painswick Beacon, open and green, splashed with silver birch and birdsong. Down then to the whitest of all Cotswold towns. Painswick has a churchyard known far and wide for its table tombs and exquisite yews – but there’s much more besides.
From Painswick a climb leads onto Scottsquar Hill and to what many consider the finest vantage point of the whole walk, Haresfield Beacon. This is indeed a tremendous knoll from which to gaze out over the Vale of Gloucester, the River Severn and the Forest of Dean. After absorbing all you can from here it’s back to woodland for a downhill stretch into an industrial valley overlooked by Stroud.
From cloth mills on the River Frome to woodlands hanging from the steep scarp slope takes only an hour or so. Peace and serenity are restored as you regain the escarpment, where huge views look out to a pair of outliers, which soon have to be crossed. Near Hetty Pegler’s Tump the Cotswold Way plunges down the scarp, then climbs up and over Cam Long Down before swooping down once more – this time into Dursley.
Flat-topped Cam Long Down captures your attention when seen from the Coaley Peak picnic site (photo: Lesley Williams)
Dursley leads to Stinchcombe Hill, and from there to North Nibley, Nibley Knoll and Wotton-under-Edge. (What names there are to conjure with in the Cotswolds!) Wotton has its millstreams, and the stage beyond Wotton explores a narrow valley lit by a lively little stream that once powered several mills, one of which is passed on the way to Hawkesbury Upton.
Out of Hawkesbury you follow the old trading route of
