June 6: Two famous gardens

 The Jubilee weekend festivities caused some changes to the normal trip itinerary, but fortunately we were still able to visit the gardens at both Highgrove and Hidcote today. Highgrove has been the country home of Prince Charles since 1980; when he bought the estate it was nothing but pastureland. To view the 18 acres of gardens today (including wildflower meadows, formal gardens, kitchen gardens and informal groves) is quite amazing. What struck me even more is the personal family element to the gardens; Charles has been involved in the details of planning, planting and maintaining the gardens for 40 years, and one can easily imagine the grandchildren running down the paths to the treehouse to play. We also had a lovely high tea in the Orchid Room pavilion. For obvious reasons no photography is allowed, so I have included a photo from the guidebook instead. 

Hidcote is in some ways similar, in that it was a sheep farm purchased by an American landscape enthusiast in 1907, who gradually designed and planted garden “rooms” of different themes over the next 40 years.  Hidcote was the first garden property taken over by the National Trust in 1948. 

On our drive between the two gardens we stopped in Cirencester, a town established by the Romans and important from medieval times to today. The cathedral-size Church (another one expanded with wool trade money) has beautiful stained glass and portions dating from the 11th to 16th centuries. The organ has over 3800 pipes! During the English Civil War, 1200 opponents to the King were imprisoned in the church; their mothers and wives broke the stained glass windows to throw food to them. Those windows are still clear glass today. 

This will be the last post from this trip. Tomorrow is all travel back to New York.

Sunday, June 5th: Everyday life on the Cotswolds

 Today we walked village to village (to village to village), followed by Sunday lunch in an elegant manor hotel. The villages are lovely and timeless, in part because this region was severely depressed and isolated after the price of wool dropped in the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century. Ironically that “saved” the villages from being redeveloped, leaving them architecturally intact when tourism discovered the region in the early 20th century, and grew  with the designation of the 2000 square mile “Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty” designation in 1966. 

We started our walk outside the gates of a manor where JM Barrie of Peter Pan fame often visited. (I should have mentioned that last night’s pub was gifted a Shakespearean sonnet by the Bard himself.) The sense of hidden history was everywhere— most buildings date from before the 16th century, all of the villages and most of the manors were present in the Domesday Book, the fields still show the ridge and farrow pattern from medieval strip farming, and it’s all both taken for granted and treasured. Recent excavations have found evidence of Mesolithic ( older than Neolithic) occupation in this part of the Cotswolds.

Some of our group got to watch (change, not hand) bell ringers practice before services. Most villages had road closures today for the last day of the Jubilee celebrations, which provided some real challenges for our bus driver.  After lunch we visited the Broadway Tower, a fanciful construction from the late 18th century, but one that subsequently figured in the pre-Raphaelite movement and the Battle for Britain. 

Pictured: the Tower Bridge ( note the double decker buses on the lift bridge) across the canal in Lower Slaughter for the Jubilee Fete, a row of houses with their front gardens in Stanton, and the Broadway Tower.

June 4: Wetlands and a modern family dairy farm

 The Cotswolds are shaped like a giant wedge, with the thin edge on the eastern side. Today we stood on the top of the western escarpment and gazed down on the Severn Estuary. We spent the bulk of the day at the Slimbridge Wetlands Centre on the eastern side of the Severn, created in 1946 by Sir Peter Scott when he dedicated his private estate to wildlife (particularly waterfowl) conservation and public education.  He was also one of the founders of the World Wildlife Fund. At different times of year the centre hosts over 100 different species of birds, many of them migratory. The centre has created many “hides”, or blinds, from which to observe the birds.  We saw some really beautiful plovers, ducks, waders and geese, as well as beautiful flowers and several kinds of grassland orchids. 

In the afternoon we traveled to a dairy farm that’s been in operation for generations. The constant tension between the cost of producing milk (including regulations and the cost of feeds or fertilizers) has caused the family to change some of how they operate.  Their cows are certified “free range” which means they graze on grass at least 180 days per year; they have started planting “herb lanes” in their fields, encouraging other plants like clover and plantain to grow in addition to grass, and reducing the use of fertilizer. The cows actually give more milk from the herby fields.  And about 20 years ago they began making cheese, to have a more value-added product in addition to milk. We learned about making several versions of Gloucestershire cheese, and got to sample them— yum! Finally, they have modernized the traditional farm store to vending machines that dispense whole milk as well as eggs, cheeses and products from neighboring farms. It has proven so popular that they have to replenish the stock several times a day. 

 Finally we ate dinner in a wonderful pub which started out as a 16th century courthouse. The access to the cellar is still the one from when It held prisoners, and there is still a retractable bar that closed off the building interior while court was in session (hence “called to the bar”). 

June 3: hedgerows and local environmental lessons

 The day began with an early morning bird walk through the extensive property of our hotel. Over a number of years the hotel has added adjacent properties and has created wildflower meadows from formerly plowed and farmed land. They are also maintaining woodland and transitional areas, all of which provide important habitat for birds, insects, small mammals and butterflies.  The naturalist who led the walk was a fount of knowledge, particularly on identifying birds by song alone— but he was surprised by how many different species we actually saw (24).  

Starting on that walk and continuing for the rest of the day were lessons and observations about methods for recovery of habitat and sustainable farming on a local or small scale. We learned about hedgerows (which are very different from our American monoculture notion of a hedge). Hedgerows have been part of the English landscape since prehistoric times, and the extent of them has reflected changes in societal and land ownership practices over the centuries. A proper hedgerow should have a berm or a wall or a fence as its foundation, around which (or on top of which) the hedgerow grows. A hedgerow should include many different types and species of plants (trees, shrubs, vines, wildflowers, brambles...) and serves to help control runoff, retain soil, and provide habitat for many species. We observed how the runoff of fertilizer for example is reflected in the type of wildflower that grows, and how a hedgerow can help contain that runoff from infiltrating the adjacent meadow or stream. We also saw other small scale activities to control runoff, for water quality and flood control, including leaving unmown edges in the tougher parts of hayfields, and encouraging streams to meander with small ponds along the way (humans emulating the actions of beavers which are no longer present in England). 

This evening turned out to be one of the most unusual experiences I’ve ever had. We traveled to Woodchester Mansion, a large mid19th century neoGothic mansion in a wooded valley. Only the shell was ever completed and it is preserved just as it was when construction was abandoned in 1863 or so. It was fascinating to see how a stone house would look at that stage— some ceilings and walls plastered, many not, and many floors never having been completed. As if that wasn’t enough, after dinner in the only finished room in the mansion, we joined the bat researchers to track Greater and Lesser Horseshoe bats as they left the attics for the evening. These bats have been studied in this location for over 60 years! We had “bat detectors” which we could tune to the frequency of each species of bat, so that as they flew by they “spoke” to us. An experience that combined surprise, frustration, elation and a sense of the absurd. 

June 2: Sun, Wool, Villas and the Platinum Jubilee

 What a day! First was the weather— it was sunny and warm, even maybe too warm, all day!! There had been great predictions that the four day weekend for the Jubilee would bring a lot of rain, but today instead we had bunting and flags and decorations in every village, and tonight our hotel was one of the designated bonfire spots. At 9:43 pm exactly, our bonfire was lit, filling a spot in the country wide chain between Prince Charles’ home at Highgrove and Princess Anne’s home at Gatcombe Park. We waved flags, drank champagne and watched fireworks. It was a rare day to be in England!

Earlier in the day we learned some history, and visited the ruins of a 4th century Roman style villa in Chedworth as well as a cathedral size church in a market town.  Wool was the backbone of the English economy for centuries (the original sheep were brought to England by the Romans to provide both meat and clothing appropriate to the climate), and Cotswolds wool was the best; that wealth built public works including churches that seem far too large and ornate for their towns. After lunch we visited a fanciful and ornate garden first created in the 1740’s and then abandoned in the 19th century.  Forty years ago, the property was inherited and the new owner embarked on an amazing task— to take out the woodland and timber lot that had been planted in the valley and restore the 1740 garden based on a detailed watercolor painting. 

Not a lot of wildlife today but a lot of new insights into the landscape and culture of the Cotswolds. 

A day in the Eastern Cotswolds

 Today was a lot of local strolling—- first around the village of Minster Lovell including the church of St Kenelm and the ruins of the Hall.  One sign of the wealth of the Lovell family was their stonebuilt dovecote; many descendants of those white doves still live in it and form an interesting contrast to the larger and more colorful native wood pigeons. Then we went on a 1.5 mile walk from one village to a second to a third. It is interesting that these villages feel quite isolated and yet they are really pretty close together. We visited the 12th century church of St Oswald (it’s the “newer building” on a site that may have been Roman and then mystic and then certainly a chapel in the doomsday book of 1086) sitting by itself in a hayfield. The assumption is that the church was not always alone, and that the lumpiness of the field disguises the ruins of a village wiped out by plague in the 14th century. 

We also saw a lot of stone walls dividing pastures that had vertical stones as the top edge— this is to help keep the sheep in the enclosures. Apparently sheep don’t like to jump over a wall but will happily jump onto the flat top of one, before jumping down to the other side. So if they can’t easily stand on the top of the wall they attempt the first jump. I was happy to see partridge and pheasants today, but the highlight (including for our guides) was to get a long close look at a barn owl at midday. 

At lunch we sampled elderflower (not elderberry) cordial, made by steeping the flowers in water for a few days, provided you have the right kind of elderberry bush. It tastes very floral, a little lemony and a little sweet, quite refreshing. It can be diluted to make a still or sparkling beverage, or even made into a mildly alcoholic champagne. We later discovered that there are elderflower gins and tonic waters also! In this part of England, elderflower is the flavor of early summer.

After lunch we went to a lovely house and garden. The garden was designed by Rosemary Veery, who is widely credited with reviving the cottage garden movement in England in the 1950’s-1980’s. The gardeners are trying to balance preservation of her legacy, the needs of the hotel that now operates in the house, and wildlife needs. One small example is a ramp built into a small waterlily pond to ensure that hedgehogs can safely come and get a drink without falling in and drowning. Our final outing of the day was to a local winemaker who is part of a movement to create a viable and competitive still (non-sparkling) wine industry in England.

For June 2: we are so lucky to have been here the week of the Queen’s platinum jubilee