Category Archives: Cotswolds

Chipping Norton Bookshop and The Uncommon Reader

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Whilst we were in the Cotswolds last week we drove through Chipping Norton and decided to stop for a coffee. There is a small parking area on Middle Row, just off the main road through the town and there was just one space available. When we got out of the car, we saw behind us some tables and chairs outside a bookshop and thought great that’s just what we wanted – a bookshop and a café too!

This is Jaffé & Neale, a bright, welcoming bookshop with a good variety of books on offer. There wasn’t much space left inside to sit and have a drink, but as in the car park there was just one table left. It was our day for sure! We had coffee and I was very tempted by the cakes, but resisted.

It was just too much to expect me to resist buying a book and I had a wander round the shelves. They had some books that have been signed by the authors and I was really pleased to find a pile of books signed by Alan Bennett. I had seen on the BBC website a while ago that Alan Bennett had been reading his new book The Uncommon Reader on Radio 4, but I hadn’t managed to listen. So I was delighted to find it here.

It’s a lovely little hardback book and it only took me a couple of hours to read it. It tells the story of Her Majesty, not named, but she has dogs, takes her summer holiday at Balmoral and is married to a duke. She comes across the travelling library, thanks to the dogs, parked next to the bins outside one of the kitchen doors at the palace and ends up borrowing a book to save the driver/librarian’s embarrassment. There are some wonderfully amusing touches, such as the Queen asking:

“’Is one allowed to borrow a book? One doesn’t have a ticket?’ No problem,’ said Mr Hutchings.
‘One is a pensioner’, said the Queen, not that she was sure that made any difference.’ ‘Ma’am can borrow up to six books’. ‘Six? Heavens!’”

Helped by Norman, who works in the kitchen, she borrows books regularly and this changes her life. This little book is full of interesting ideas about books and the nature of reading and society. As the Queen expands her range she realises that “Books did not care who was reading them, or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth: letters a republic.”

I love the way Bennett describes how the Queen becomes a bookaholic (my word, not his) and wants to discuss her books and what she is reading. The French President had mentioned Proust to her, when she had asked him what he thought about Jean Genet, which led to her taking Proust’s novel, all thirteen volumes of it, and George Painter’s biography of Proust, as her holiday reading at Balmoral. What an image!

This book is only 124 pages, but what a lot is packed into those pages, not a word is wasted. It’s amusing and thought provoking as well. I wondered where it was leading and how Bennett was going to end the story, but all I’ll say is that the Queen realises that books have enriched her life “in a way that one could never have expected. “ Her next venture follows inevitably. Do read this book. I wonder if the Queen has.

Cotswolds Break – Minster Lovell

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We’re in the Cotswolds again for the third time this year – we like it. Today we walked from Minster Lovell, a beautiful little village through the fields alongside the River Windrush to the ruins of Minster Lovell Hall.

We did get our feet wet as the path was still flooded in parts.

After this section the path left the river and we climbed up through woodland to fields, eventually reaching Crawley, where we stopped for a drink at the Lamb Inn, still with wet feet and muddy boots!

Back along the footpaths to Minster Lovell church.

After the Rain the Sun

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D and I drove to Woolhope, near Hereford last Sunday. The weather was fine, with blue sky and fluffy clouds, a welcome change after all the rain that had drenched England in the last few weeks. There had been floods in Gloucester, which was on our route to Woolhope, but when we got there the roads were clear. I was reminded of the poem I used to recite as a child, beginning ‘Glad that I live am I’ and the lines:

After the sun the rain

After the rain the sun
This is the way of life
Til the work be done

We arrived at Twilles Barn in bright sunshine and it looked beautiful, in an idyllic setting, next to apple orchards, overlooking the Herefordshire countryside.

The word ‘hope’ in Woodhope, Fownhope and Sollers Hope, all villages in the locality, means a small, enclosed blind valley. The Barn just outside the village of Woolhope is surrounded by hills in just such a valley, lying at the end of a gravelled driveway, beyond a gate flanked by pillars topped with two stone carved creatures.


The garden is large, with lawns sloping down to the building, a timber framed brick barn conversion, with a modern conservatory on the side and a crazy paving patio bounded by a small brick wall. The patio was the perfect place to sit and read, sipping a glass of wine. The apple orchards to the side and front are also the home of numerous sheep, all noisily calling to each other as they forage among the grass, constantly trotting or ambling around the apple trees.

Birds flock to the bird feeder in the centre of the side lawn, with the greater spotted woodpecker having precedence over the other birds. One morning I walked into the conservatory and was surprised by the sight of a female pheasant preening on the patio wall with the male strutting proudly around the tree behind her.

The weather was perfect – all week it was hot and sunny, just like summers used to be. On Monday we went to Hereford, on the banks of the River Wye. It has been a cathedral city since about 700AD. We had lunch in the Cloister Cafe, in the Cathedral.

The Cathedral was built over the centuries, and contains examples of architecture dating from Norman times. There are massive Norman pillars dividing the 12th century nave from the 14th century north and south aisles. The stone and marble tomb of Thomas Cantilupe, who was the Bishop of Hereford and Chancellor of England, canonised in 1320 is one of the best preserved medieval shrines in England, according to the description in the Cathedral guide.

The most interesting part of the Cathedral for me is the medieval Mappa Mundi and the Cathedral’s Chained Library. The Souvenir Guide states “the map can be dated to the late 1280s, certainly after 1283 when work began on the building of the castle of Caernarfon, which appears on the map.” I am fascinated by the thought that this map has survived all these centuries since then.

It is drawn on a single sheet of parchment, 5ft 2in high and 4ft 4in wide, depicting the world within a large circle, with Jerusalem at its centre, illustrated outside the circlewith scenes of Christ sat in judgement and pictures of Biblical events.

Later in the afternoon we went for short walk from the Barn down a little lane, with grass growing in the middle, to Alford’s Mill. In the evening we went to the Butchers Arms just outside the village and had a very good meal. The pub dates from the 14th century and was originally a butcher’s shop and beer house, until 1881, when it was licensed as a public house. It is a beautiful black and white timber framed building, with more modern extensions. It has low beamed ceilings and a small welcoming bar.

Cotswolds Visit Part 1

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On our recent visit to the Cotswolds we stayed at a small cottage at Well Farm, Wick Street, near Painswick on the old main road from Gloucester to Cirencester. We really enjoyed our stay, thanks to a cottage full of character in beautiful countryside, walks that were not too strenuous, a very interesting church and amazing graveyard, picturesque buildings and literary connections.
First a touch of historical background – I like to know the background and set things in context. In 1819 a new turnpike road was built along the west side of the valley as Wick Street was too steep for carriage traffic, thus taking the main traffic away from the ancient route that follows the spring line crossing the valley south east of Painswick. The photo shows Well Farm (with the tall chimneys) behind the cottages.
Well Farm is on the east side of the road overlooking the valley. The main house is a beautiful late medieval building with a late 17th century front; there is a mid 19th century northern extension. The earliest known owner was Edward Seaman and he was hanged for murder in 1636. The house then was probably a small late-medieval house, consisting of a kitchen and dining room, maybe with a timbered front to the road.
The cottage we stayed in was originally one of the agricultural buildings belonging to the farm and was formerly used either as a cowshed and or as a milking shed. The stone built cottage stands sideways on to and above the road, opposite the red roofed building ( a cowshed) on the opposite side of the road. Six Gloucestershire Old Spots were ranging freely in the fields opposite. Knowing next to nothing about pigs we thought they were vastly entertaining. These pigs are unlike any others I have seen, with faces that look as though they have been squashed in and how they see is a mystery to me as their ears flop down apparently completely covering their eyes. They trotted round the fields, often following each other in a straight line. They pushed and shoved each other, squealing and grunting at each other and of course loved rolling around in their mud baths – apparently they each had their own favourite spots. The largest sow is called Hinge and her sister is of course Bracket. Hinge was the noisiest of the lot, especially when the boar was getting interested in her. He is only young and about a quarter of her size.
Whilst we were there four cows were moved from the cowsheds back to the main farm. This was accomplished in two trips and much mooing! It was a lot quieter after they left. But it wasn’t completely quiet as just outside the kitchen window was a bird feeder stand visited by bluetits, great tits, nuthatches, chaffinchs, a robin, blackbirds, and a couple of pheasants eating the seeds dropped by the other birds.
However, as well as birds, this was visited by two squirrels as well, who rapidly devoured the bird food.

 

The cottage has a red metal spiral staircase up to the“solar gallery” with a view overlooking Painswick Valley. It was very comfortable, with a coffee table and two very large easy chairs. I enjoyed sitting up there looking at the view, reading and playing Scrabble. There was an interesting selection of books at the cottage – you can just see the bookshelves to the left of the painting on the stone wall – several books on the Cotswolds; on Stroud, a town just down the road; a booklet giving the history of the Farm and cottages; as well as books on local walks and novels, such as Lord Jim, For Whom the Bell Tolls, a Jilly Cooper novel (she lives in Gloucestershire, not too far from Painswick I believe) and Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee, a native of Slad – where we stopped for a drink at the Woolpack Inn on one of our walks. I didn’t have time to read any except the local books and had brought several of my own with me. I swapped between reading Hardy’s The Woodlanders (still to finish) and Anita Shreve’s Body Surfing, which made good contrasts being complete opposites, although with similarities in that both are essentially about the love triangle between two men and a woman and both are melancholic. They also write so lyrically about the locality, setting the scene so well – Hardy in Dorset and Shreve in New Hampshire – that they make me want to visit both.
So, it looks as though Dorset could be the next place we visit and New Hampshire will have to wait, who knows.

Little Fleece Bookshop, Painswick

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During my stay near Painswick I visited the Little Fleece Bookshop owned by the National Trust. I have to admit that this bookshop was one of my reasons for staying in the area and it certainly lived up to my expectations. Unlike other National Trust properties there is no entry charge, well it is a shop. And there are no leaflets on the NT either. It is an excellent secondhand and antiquarian bookshop in a 17th century building, which has been very well restored. It took a bit of finding and we spent some time walking round Painswick looking for it and when we did it was closed. It’s only open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, so fortunately we were able to return on Thursday. As you can see the entrance is through a small doorway leading into a narrow passageway, which is lined with bookshelves . A bell rings as you enter and soft music is playing in the background. The main area of the shop is a wonderful conglomeration of books, in bookcases, on tables and piled up on the floor, just begging to be picked up and read.
I was spoilt for choice, with plenty of books on the Cotswolds and on Gloucestershire as well as on art, architecture and the usual mix of fiction and non-fiction. There was also an interesting pile of old maps which caught my eye. I spent quite some time wandering round the books whilst I made up my mind what to buy. This was really difficult as there so many that appealed. I was looking for Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie, about his childhood in Slad, not far from Painswick. However, the Little Fleece did not have a copy. In the end I bought a biography of Virginia Woolf by Lyndall Gordon. I hadn’t read any of Virginia Woolf’s books until I read Mrs Dalloway when I was doing an Open University course on Literature in the Modern World. I don’t know much about her life, although I recently read a fictionalised biography, But Nobody Lives in Bloomsbury by Gillian Freeman, so I’m looking forward to reading this. I think that this is the biography Susan Hill referred to a while ago, and it has a different slant on her life.

Cottage holiday

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I’ve been away for a week – just got back yesterday and trying to catch up with everything. We stopped at our son’s on the way home to watch the cup final. But this was not a good game, with Manchester United losing to Chelsea – best not to say any more about that.

So, just a short post for the time being.

We stayed in a beautiful cottage in Gloucestershire and had a really relaxing break. Although I took lots of books to read and a cross-stitch to do I only read one book – Body Surfing – and did no stitching, because we went for several walks, did lots of sightseeing, had several good pub meals and were entertained by squirrels on the bird feeder outside the kitchen window as well as the birds, and by a group of Gloucestershire Old Spots (pigs) in the field across the road – more photos to follow.