The Cotswolds

Executive summary by darmansjah

The Cotswolds are a range of hills in southwestern and west-central England, an area 25 miles (40 km) across and 90 miles (145 km) long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The highest point in the Cotswolds range is Cleeve Hill at 1,083 ft (330 m), 2.5 miles (4 km) to the north of Cheltenham.

The Cotswolds lie mainly within the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, but extend into parts of Wiltshire, Somerset, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire. The hills give their name to the Cotswold local government district in Gloucestershire, which administers a large part of the area.

The name Cotswold is sometimes attributed the meaning, sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides,incorporating the term, wold, meaning, woodland. The English Place-Name Society has for many years accepted that the term Cotswold is derived from Codesuualt of the twelfth century or other variations on this form, the etymology of which was given, 'Cod's-wold', which is 'Cod's high open land'. Cod was interpreted as an Old English personal name, which may be recognised in further names: Cutsdean, Codeswellan, and Codesbyrig, some of which date back to the eighth century AD. It has subsequently been noticed that "Cod" could derive philologically from a Brittonic female cogname "Cuda", which is the name of a mother goddess thought to have resided in the Cotswold region in Celtic mythology.

The spine of the Cotswolds runs southwest to northeast through six counties, particularly Gloucestershire, west Oxfordshire, and south western Warwickshire. The northern and western edges of the Cotswolds are marked by steep escarpments down to the Severn valley and the Warwickshire Avon. This escarpment or scarp feature, sometimes called the Cotswold Edge, is a result of the uplifting (tilting) of the limestone layer, exposing its broken edge. This is a cuesta, in geological terms. The dip slope is to the southeast. On the eastern boundary lies the city of Oxford and on the west is Stroud. To the southeast, the upper reaches of the Thames Valley and towns such as Lechlade, Tetbury, and Fairford are often considered to mark the limit of this region. To the south the Cotswolds, with the characteristic uplift of the Cotswold Edge, reach beyond Bath, and towns such as Chipping Sodbury and Marshfield share elements of Cotswold character.

The area is characterised by attractive small towns and villages built of the underlying Cotswold stone (a yellow oolitic limestone). This limestone is rich in fossils, particularly of fossilised sea urchins. In the Middle Ages the wool trade made the Cotswolds prosperous. Some of this money was put into the building of churches so the area has a number of large and handsome Cotswold stone "wool churches". The area remains affluent and has attracted wealthy people who own second homes in the area or have chosen to retire there.

Cotswold towns include Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway, Burford, Chipping Norton, Cirencester, Moreton-in-Marsh, Northleach, Stow-on-the-Wold, Stroud, and Winchcombe.

The town of Chipping Campden is notable for being the home of the Arts and Crafts Movement, founded by William Morris at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. William Morris lived occasionally in Broadway Tower, a folly, now part of a country park. Chipping Campden also is known for the annual Cotswold Olimpick Games, a celebration of sports and games dating back to the early seventeenth century.

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

The Cotswolds were designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1966, with an expansion on 21 December 1990 to 1,990 square kilometres (768 sq mi). In 1991, all AONBs were measured again using modern methods. The official area of the Cotswolds AONB was increased to 2,038 square kilometres (787 sq mi). In 2000, the government confirmed that AONBs had the same landscape quality and status as National Parks.[12] The Cotswolds AONB, which is the largest in England and Wales, stretches from the border regions of South Warwickshire and Worcestershire, through West Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, and takes in parts of Wiltshire, Bath, and north east Somerset in the South. Gloucestershire County Council is responsible for sixty-three percent of the AONB.

The Cotswolds Conservation Board has the task of conserving and enhancing the AONB. Established under statute in 2004 as an independent public body, the Board carries out a range of work from securing funding for 'on the ground' conservation projects, to providing a strategic overview of the area for key decision makers, such as planning officials. The Board is funded by Natural England and the seventeen local authorities that are covered by the AONB.

While the beauty of the Cotswolds AONB is intertwined with that of the villages that seem almost to grow out of the landscape, the Cotswolds were primarily designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty for the rare limestone grassland habitats as well as the old growth beech woodlands that typify the area. These habitat areas are also the last refuge for many other flora and fauna, with some so endangered that they are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Cleeve Hill, and its associated commons, is a fine example of a limestone grassland and it is one of the few locations where the Duke of Burgundy butterfly may still be found in abundance.

The uniqueness and value of the Cotswolds is shown in the fact that five European Special Areas of Conservation, three National Nature Reserves and more than eighty Sites of Special Scientific Interest are within the Cotswolds AONB.

The Cotswold Voluntary Wardens Service, now part of the Cotswolds Conservation Board, was established in 1968 to help conserve and enhance the area and now has more than 300 wardens.

The Cotswold Way is a long-distance footpath, approximately 103 miles (166 km) long, running the length of the AONB, mainly on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment with views over the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham.

Transport

The Cotswolds lie between the M5, M40, and M4 motorways. The main non-motorway roads through the area are the A46: Bath – Stroud – Cheltenham; the A419: Swindon – Cirencester – Stroud; the A429: Cirencester – Stow-on-the-Wold – Moreton-in-Marsh; and the A40: Oxford – Burford – Cheltenham. These all roughly follow the routes of ancient roads, some laid down by the Romans, such as Ermin Street and the Fosse Way.

The area is bounded by two major rail routes: in the south by the main Bristol–Bath–London High Speed line (including the South Wales Main Line) and in the west by the Bristol–Birmingham main line. In addition, the Cotswold Line runs through the Cotswolds from Oxford to Worcester, and the Golden Valley Line runs from Swindon via Stroud to Gloucester, carrying high speed and local services.

Mainline, high-speed rail services to the big cities run from stations such as Bath, Swindon, Oxford, Cheltenham, and Worcester. Mainline trains run by First Great Western to London Paddington also are available from Kemble station near Cirencester, Kingham station near Stow-on-the-Wold, Charlbury station, and Moreton-in-Marsh station.

Additionally, there is the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, a steam heritage railway serving the Cotswolds from Cheltenham to Winchcombe and Toddington.

Cheltenham, which is located just West of the Cotswolds, is a hub for National Express coach services. There are local bus services across the area, but some are infrequent.

The River Thames flows from the Cotswolds and is navigable from Inglesham and Lechlade-on-Thames downstream to Oxford.

The Cotswolds in culture and the media

The Cotswold region has inspired some of England's finest composers. In the early 1900s, Herbert Howells and Ivor Gurney used to go for long walks together over the hills and Gurney urged Howells to make the landscape, including the nearby Malvern Hills, the inspiration for his future work. Accepting, and true to his word, in 1916, Howells wrote his first major piece, the Piano Quartet in A minor, inspired by the magnificent view of the Malverns - it was dedicated to "the hill at Chosen (Churchdown) and Ivor Gurney who knows it". Another contemporary of theirs, Gerald Finzi, lived in nearby Painswick.

Gustav Holst titled his Symphony in F major, Op.8 H47 The Cotswolds. The composer Ralph Vaughan Williams composed his opera "Hugh the Drover" from 1913 to 1924, which depicts life in a Cotswold village and incorporates folk melodies derived from the area. The film Better Things, directed by Duane Hopkins, is set in a small Cotswold village. The fictional Agatha Raisin lives in the fictional village of Carsely in the Cotswolds. The Chipping Norton set are based in the Cotswolds.

In the television series Angel episode, A Hole in the World, Angel and Spike go looking for the Deeper Well - the burial ground for the old ones of the demon age, and prepare to go speak with its guardian, Drogyn.