The Cotswolds

In this new, thoroughly updated third edition of Bradt’s The Cotswolds, part of Bradt’s distinctive ’Slow Travel’ series of guides to UK regions, local resident and experienced travel writer Caroline Mills shares her favourites in a region that includes some of US visitors’ most popular places outside London.
Drawing on more than 50 years’ living in the Cotswolds, and combining engaging first-person narrative with authoritative advice, Mills slows readers down and helps them delve deeply into a range of regions: the Cotswolds National Landscape Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB); the Cotswold escarpment, hills and valleys; the Wiltshire Cotswolds and the area known as the Four Shires; three Cotswold ’gateways’ (Stratford-upon-Avon, Bath and Oxford); the lesser-known ’hidden’ fringes of the Cotswolds, including the Oxfordshire Cotswolds, which follow the youthful Thames Valley, and the Cotswold Way National Trail.
The Cotswolds’ rich manmade heritage includes: Highgrove Gardens (the private home of King Charles III and the Queen Consort); Oxford University (the world’s oldest); Stratford-upon-Avon (home to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre); the Roman towns of Bath (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and Cirencester, plus Fosse Way (one of the UK’s most important Roman roads); many famous castles, abbeys, country houses and estates (including Blenheim Palace, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site); the American Museum (the only museum of its kind outside the USA); and quintessential English villages such as Bibury (with the photogenic Arlington Row) and Broadway (where there was a notable American Artist’s colony in the early 20th century).
With a harmonious combination of quintessential rural England, charming provincial market towns, appealing countryside, quirky British events such as Gloucestershire’s annual cheese-rolling competition or Tetbury’s Woolsack Races, and a wealth of local food-and-drink producers, the Cotswolds are an all-year-round destination, whether for a day trip, a quiet weekend away as part of a wider visit, or a multi-week holiday. Whether your interests comprise city or country, historic buildings or horseriding, walking or gastronomy, Bradt’s Cotswolds (Slow Travel) is the perfect guide to facilitate in-depth exploration and intense enjoyment.

Although officially a freelance travel and guidebook writer with 35 years’ experience in publishing, Caroline Mills (carolinemills.net) is essentially a country girl. While she loves to visit the towns and cities of Europe, she likes nothing better than to return to the farm where she lives with her husband and three children, on the edge of the Cotswolds. Having moved no more than five miles from where she grew up - also in the Cotswolds - she has been able to call the region home for more than 50 years. With a keen desire to see the area maintain its identity, keeping old traditions alive, and with a passionate love of the countryside in which she lives, she is well placed to paint a very personal picture of this special place. It is this vast in-depth knowledge of the region that led her to write Cotswolds (Slow Travel) for Bradt.