Facts about The Cotswolds

Where is The Cotswolds?

The Cotswolds are hills that run through Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Worcestershire and Somerset.

The Cotswolds has some beautiful villages set deep in its stunning countryside and we have often found ourselves surveying properties in many of these including Bath, Broadway, Bourton on the water, Chipping Camden, Chipping Norton, Chipping Sodbury, Berkeley, Malmesbury, Ledbury, Tewkesbury, Wootton Bassett, Burford, Bicester, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Droitwich Spa, Fairford, Warwick, Stratford Upon Avon, Stroud, Stow on the Wold.

What is The Cotswolds?

Limestone

The Cotsolds hills are made up of limestone from the Jurassic period - that is 206 – 144 million years ago give or take a few years. The limestone has a honey colour, although we have noted that some people call it a yellowish white, it comes from a shallow sea bed that ran from Lincolnshire all the way to Dorset and covered much of the Cotswolds area and is known as Oolitic limestone and is generally graded into inferior and dense limestone no prizes for guessing which many of the buildings were built from. The limestone or calcium carbonate composition dissolves with acid rain which we have quite a lot of and pollutants which we also have quite a lot of and it is a major problem with many of the old buildings in the Cotswolds. This together with unsympathetic repairs on many of the older properties for those wanting a more detailed view search on monitoring moisture ratings under deterioration of historic limestone.

Famous people who have lived in the Cotswolds

Include:

William Morris who lived in the Cotswolds during the 1800's– founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement. – studied at Oxford University and spent his last years living in Cotswolds.

William Shakespeare – born and lived in Stratford Upon Avon and is buried in The Holy Trinity Church.

Jane Austin – famed for Northanger Abbey amongst others, lived for a while in Bath .

J M Barrie – wrote Peter Pan, spent his summers in Stanway House, Stanway, North Cotswolds during the 1920's and early 1930's.

J B Priestley – writer - An Inspector Calls is still studied by many school pupils today. He lived in Alveston near Stratford Upon Avon for much of his married life (third marriage) until his death in 1984.

John Betjeman – Poet Laureate – spent his student years staying in Bourton on the Water whilst studying at Oxford University .

Edward Jenner – born at Berkeley in 1700's and spent much of his career living there as the local doctor, but famed for his discovery of a vaccine for Smallpox – which has now been eradicated.

Laurie Lee – poet who famously wrote Cider with Rosie – lived in Slad Valley near Stroud.

Edward Elgar composer born during Victorian era. Famous for patriotic song Land of Hope and Glory, synonymous with last night at the Proms

Gustav Holst – composer of The Planets born in Cheltenham towards the end of 1800's.

Winston Churchill – famous Prime Minster during WWII – born in Blenheim Palace , Woodstock , Oxfordshire.

David Cameron - the current Prime Minister lives in Dean, a small Hamlet, which is located 3 miles from Chipping Norton which is in Oxfordshire.