Cotswolds - Villages, Pubs, and Soccer

On the next leg of our Great British journey, more family joined us. My brother Alan, sister-in-law Kristi, and my newly high-school graduated niece, Kaeli, made the trek over the pond to join us in England. Unfortunately, my nephew Jack wasn’t able to get away from work. 

The "must-do" list was simple. Kaeli really wanted to do some thrift-store shopping. Kristi wanted to visit some pretty English villages and gardens. Alan just wanted to go to a classic English pub. 

So, the Cotswolds, with its traditional “honey-colored” stone villages and countryside, was the perfect place to meet up.

There are over 100 villages in the area, so you could spend months village-hopping and not cover them all. But, with our time stayed in the smaller village of Great Rissington as our base, and explore other villages from there. 

We had the cutest Airbnb.

There was only one pub, The Lamb Inn, but it was delicious and charming.

There was also only one church, but it was unlocked, so we explored a bit and also found a puzzle exchange and a couple of maps of the village displayed on the wall. One of them was a quilt!

The graveyard also had some familiar last names!! The Berry side of the family came to America at some point in the late 1600s, so we don’t really know where in England they are from, but it was fun to see this all the same. 

Counting Great Rissington, we went to five other villages. 

Fun fact: The English have a lot of words that basically mean a type of hill. “Wold” is one of them. Some others are: dale, fell, pike, hillock, knoll, down, ect. The English are experts on the word for hill.

So, Cotswold is a hill of sheep, or something like that. 

The next village we explored, Stow-on-the-Wold, is basically “a place on a hill.” I agree that “Stow-on-the-Wold” has a better ring to it. This is a historical market town and is super charming and full of fun shops. There was thrifting for Kaeli, a tea-house for Lucy, a bookstore for Jimmy, pretty shops and gardens for Mom and Kristi.

We also found a barbershop for Sammy, who was in sore need. 

I suspect that Sammy’s barber may have also been a Viking or perhaps a rugby player, which is really the same thing if you think about it. 

Dad, Alan and Tom found England’s oldest inn, The Porch House. 

For me, it was all about a certain door.

At St. Edwards Church on the north side is a door that is said to have inspired Tolkien for the west gate of Moria, also known as the “Doors of Dorin.”

“Speak Friend and Enter.”

The next village was Bourton-on-the-Water. This was my personal favorite. It was completely charming. The river, the bridges, the perfumery, shops, tea houses and ice cream. 

We also did the Dragonfly Maze, which Tom and Sammy got the “World’s best time for completion” at 10 minutes, and also an invitation to church on Sunday, followed by Sunday Roast. 

We also visited the village of Bibury, with its classic Arlington Row. 

Then also the village of Chipping Campden, which is another market town. This one had the same honey-colored stone, but some of the roofs were thatch!

And lastly, we visited the village of Broadway, but by the time we got there at 5 pm, most everything was closing up. We did eat some excellent fish and chips. 

Another really fun thing we did while exploring the Cotswolds was to take in a “friendly” match of football (soccer) at nearby Cheltenham. In July, there weren’t any main soccer matches playing, but there were a few non-competitive matches (aka - friendly). They were also cheap, like five pounds a person. We got great seats, and my parents were even on the front row, which turned out to be right on the green, mid-field. That made things a bit more exciting as sometimes balls came flying into the stands. 

Everyone loved this so much! Next time we are in England, we will definitely try to get in a game or two.