Insight Guides Great Breaks Cotswolds

Insight Guides

• Verlag: Insight
• ISBN:
  9781780057774
• Auflage: 2
• Thema: Crescita personale
• Thema: Viaggi

Enjoy a pint of beer in a classic pub in Bourton-on-the-Water, drive through the gorgeous rolling hills of Evesham or sample scones and tea in Painswick with Great Breaks Cotswolds - the perfect guide to finding your way around this area of outstanding natural beauty. Eight easy-to-follow tours around the area take in the most popular sights as well as hidden corners away from the crowds; all are illustrated with vivid photography, clear maps and suggestions for places to eat and drink en route. We explore key aspects of the region's rich history and culture to help you immerse yourself in the delightfully slow pace of Cotswold life. Travel tips help you find unique places to stay and offer practical advice for getting there and traveling around. A handy pocked-sized guide that's packed full of information and ideas.

Tour 1: Gloucester and the Vale of Berkeley

This 35-mile (56km) drive is a full-day’s sightseeing, taking in castles and nature reserves, travelling through mostly flat terrain alongside canals, then ending up in Gloucester

Highlights

• Berkeley Castle
• Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre
• Frampton-on-Severn
• Saul Junction Heritage Centre
• Hardwicke Court
• Gloucester

Narrow boat, at the historic Gloucester waterfront.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Lying between the River Severn to the west and the steep Cotswold escarpment to the east, this tour begins in the Vale of Berkeley (also known as Berkeley Vale), an area of rich pasture and small dairy farms. Red-brown Gloucester cows (now a rare breed that can be seen at the Cotswold Farm Park; (for more information, click here)) were once raised here to produce creamy Single and Double Gloucester cheeses.

As the tour continues there is the opportunity to learn more about the important canal restoration work that is being carried out in the area, and finally to explore Gloucestershire’s county town.

BERKELEY

The starting point of the tour is Berkeley Castle 1[map] (tel: [phone]; www.berkeley-castle.com; May–Sept Sun–Wed 11am–5pm, Apr and Oct Sun only; charge), the site where Edward II was brutally murdered in 1327. Despite being a party to regicide, the lords Berkeley managed to hang on to their magnificent feudal castle, which has passed through 24 generations of the same family from 1153 to the present day. The castle looks the part, with its massive Norman keep (built 1067), the cell where Edward spent his last days and the Great Hall, where the English barons held their last meeting before riding to Runnymede to force King John to set his seal to the Magna Carta.

Berkeley Castle entrance.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Eight acres (3 hectares) of fine terraced gardens surround the castle, including Queen Elizabeth I’s bowling green and the 8th Earl’s swimming pool. A Butterfly House (May–Sept; charge) is located in the walled kitchen garden, where tropical species fly freely and where you can see the entire life cycle of transition from chrysalis to butterfly. In St Mary’s Church alongside the castle, fine alabaster effigies commemorate the Berkeleys and their wives, but it is worth seeking out the two table tombs of lesser mortals in the churchyard. One marks the burial place of England’s last court jester (died 1728), whose grave bears an epitaph penned by Jonathan Swift; while the other has an equally witty engraving summing up the life of local watchmaker Thomas Pearce (died 1665).

Detour for the Children

On leaving the castle head west for the centre of town, or east to Cattle Country Adventure Park (Berkeley Heath Farm; tel: [phone]; www.cattlecountry.co.uk; June–Aug daily 10am–5pm, Mar–May, Sept–Oct Sat–Sun 10am–4pm, with exceptions; charge). Children will enjoy its farm trail (complete with roaming bison), steam train ride, indoor playbarn, boating lake and outdoor assault course with zip wires and a vertical drop slide.

Dr Jenner’s House

In the centre of Berkeley, the remarkable story of Edward Jenner’s research and the development of the world’s first vaccine (for more information, click here) is told through films and displays at the Dr Jenner’s House (The Chantry, Church Lane; tel: [phone]; www.jennermuseum.com; Mar–Oct Sun–Fri noon–5pm; charge). Laid out in Jenner’s country home, the exhibits include 18th-century cartoons satirising Jenner and his patients as bovine country buffoons. Set in the grounds is a 19th-century cider- and ale-house. Jenner does not enjoy the regard that you might expect in England, a point illustrated by the fact that this fascinating museum was paid for by a Japanese philanthropist.

A butterfly feasting in Berkeley Castle’s Butterfly House.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

An End to Smallpox

In the 18th century, local doctor Edward Jenner noted in the course of his work that the milkmaids who contracted cowpox, a minor disease, became immune to smallpox, a disease that killed thousands of children every year and left thousands more blinded or scarred for life. In 1796 Jenner vaccinated a local boy with cowpox, and thus invented the science of immun­ology, as well as the practice of vaccination.

RIVERS AND CANALS

From the centre of Berkeley, bear right through Market Place to Maybrook Street and on to Station Road. Cross a small roundabout then, just after you pass through Wanswell, turn right to reach the northern tip at Purton. Purton 2[map] is a peaceful spot with a pretty church (1874) on the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, where boats pass through a swing bridge observed by picnickers and passing tourists. There are fine walks along the towpath as far as Gloucester.

Sharpness Detour

Before reaching Purton, a detour west takes you to the Severnside port town of Sharpness, with its busy container terminal. The town was founded in 1794 when the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal was dug so that ships could sail directly to Gloucester without having to navigate the difficult tidal waters of the River Severn. The canal remains in use, and is capable of taking ships as large as 1,000 tonnes. Sharpness is also the centre of the local elver fishing industry. Elvers are young eels that are carried by the Gulf Stream from the Sargasso Sea, where they hatch, to the rivers of northern Europe, where they grow to adults, before returning to the Sargasso to breed and die. The elvers are netted along these banks between February and May. Rumours that elvers are dying out in the River Severn have led to bylaws being laid down to regulate elver net fishing.

Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre

From Purton continue following signs south all the way to Slimbridge. You will encounter the canal again if you visit Slimbridge, for the road to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre 3[map] (tel: [phone]; www.wwt.org.uk/slimbridge; daily Apr–Oct 9.30am–5.30pm, Nov–Mar 9.30am–5pm; charge) passes over one of several bridges that swing aside to let ships and pleasure boats through. The centre was founded in 1946 by the artist ...