A year on from our first camping trip, Pete and I found ourselves back at the same wholesome campsite just outside Cirencester for a weekend of cream teas and frolicking in the hills. As well as providing a particularly glorious spot on which to pitch your tent, Abbey Home Farm is primarily an organic farm and shop – and, as we discovered last year, their food is pretty darn tasty too! The organic standard extends to the whole of the campsite: no hot showers, and compost loos. Sometimes, I have found that this organic ethos translates into a certain self-righteousness and sense of superiority; fortunately, this has not the case here. The staff at Abbey Home Farm are extremely friendly and keen to help – whether they’re offering to sign you up for egg-collecting the following morning (at a fee), or offering to return your brazier in their truck, although they’re driving away from the farm.
On our first day, we gently ambled about Chedworth, its surrounding woods, and the Coln valley. Chedworth is easily one of the most beautiful villages I have ever seen – and so it is only somewhat reluctantly that I even mention it here, as our circular walk the next day showed all too clearly what fate awaits a picture-postcard village when its charm becomes too well-known.
True, there are certain significant differences between Chedworth and Bourton-on-the-Water: Chedworth consists almost solely of large Cotswold stone houses that once would have belonged to shepherds, scattered up and down the Coln valley for about a mile – it is currently home to a pub, a phone box filled with second hand books and an emergency aid kit, and that’s about it (what more could you want?). It still retains a distinctly medieval village feel: alley-type footpaths that open into meadows run alongside many of the houses, and most of these – nearly all of them bear the somewhat mysterious name of ‘Denfurlong’ – are clustered around a central triangle outside the pub.
Bourton on the other hand was once a small market town, and although it also retains bucket loads of that charm, the shops that once would have been grocers, bakers and butchers are now tea rooms, souvenir shops and B&B’s. It was probably fortunate that the sun was shining when we visited, or we would have undoubtedly felt compelled to buy ice cream, postcards and cream teas to provide them with the custom they must lack when the weather keeps the tourists at bay. Instead, we couldn’t wait to get away from the bustle.
I really wasn’t prepared for the sheer volume of tourists we encountered. They were everywhere. The fact that a field had been opened as a carkpark to raise money for charity at £3/day parking should have been a clue I guess. But we didn’t care, we weren’t planning on spend long in the town itself: we were there for walking! And so, after enjoying a delightful Sunday roast at the Kingsbridge Pub, we set off to quickly get away from the swarms of families, picnickers and tourists who had appropriated the whole village. It didn’t take long to get away. Less than 1 km into our walk, we were away from all civilisation, and for the next four hours, only exchanged salutations with livestock, and the odd fellow walker.
We began our walk by following the river Windrush through alternating woodlands and open pastures towards Naunton, stopping only once to remove our walking boots and dunk our feet in the (still extremely chilly) river. The Windrush is a delightful river: clear and shallow all the way from where we were this weekend near its source, all the way to where it joins the Thames, just to the West of Oxford. All along the section we walked, it was frequently spanned by extremely low bridges – usually barely rising above ground level – throughout both villages and valley.
After skimming Naunton, we looped uphill through open fields, and towards the picturesque Slaughter villages (which included a chance encounter with a fellow Oxfordian returning from a croquet match – you really can’t get away).
This quietude, and the dazzling views awaiting us at the top of the hillocks, truly showed the Cotswolds at their most glorious, and we couldn’t help but feel that the families lazing around down in Bourton had missed out on the true beauty of this place. Why spend a sunny Sunday bank holiday sharing the grass and overpriced ice cream with the masses, when you can pack a picnic, and enjoy such splendour a mere half hour walk away?
Mini Adventures on Foot 