Travel: Driving through the impossibly picturesque Cotswolds
Live MintWhen we drive into Bourton-on-the-Water, ignoring the hundredth plaintive “are we there yet?” from the tween, it seems that all of the UK has descended on the idyllic village in the rural Cotswolds in south-central England. “It is thought that the Romans were the first to discover the properties of Cotswold stone and then used it to construct buildings throughout Britain,” says Ella Drapper, a lettings negotiator at Harrison Hardie, an agency that aims to help families “find their forever homes in the Cotswolds”. The Cotswolds owe their wealth to the Cotswold Lion, large sheep said to have been introduced to the UK by the Romans who used the wool, known as ‘golden fleece’, for uniforms. The five arched stone bridges that span the Windrush River, date from between 1654 and 1911, and give the village the name, ‘Venice of the Cotswolds’. The Cotswolds house pastoral perfection and some impossibly picturesque villages—from Bibury and Stow on the Wold to Winchcombe and Tetbury, all of which we travelled to—but Bourton-on-the-Water stands out as the village that personifies the sylvan region.
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