Exploring the Cotswolds Episode 3 | Winchcombe and Broadway to Chipping Campden & Moreton in Marsh

[Music] hi there and welcome to the Cotswolds Explorer I'm Robin chakra and we are exploring the beautiful region of the Cotswolds in southwest England following in the trail of Herbert Evans who cycled around this region and wrote about his experiences in this wonderful book the highways and byways in Oxford and the Cotswolds published in 1905 a hundred and fourteen years ago [Music] this is the start of episode three of our half-hour compilations with new footage of little villages and landmarks beginning on the western escarpment of the Cotswolds in the village of winch CIM the story of this town begins in Neolithic times as far back as 3,000 years BC people lived and died here just south of the town is a long barrow and Neolithic burial chamber which after its excavation and restoration in the late 1920s is now probably one of the best preserved examples of its kind in the country as we've discovered before in nearby Stowe the Romans were extremely active in this area and the remains of two Roman villas are to be found just outside which cim suggesting that the river crossing at the bottom of the valley brought people here to farm but it was in the Saxon era that Winship became a serious player King offer of Mercia founded a nunnery here in the 8th century AD which later became winch come a be a major Benedictine Center and a place of great learning nothing remains of the abbey now but bits of its stone can be found incorporated into several existing buildings up until now we visited as you know many villages and towns all of which I've either seen before or read a great deal about I've never visited winch come before now and it has come as a complete surprise the first exciting thing has been the approach to this bustling metropolis widget and I came down over the hills from Stowe through some of the most extraordinary villages I've ever seen winding along incredibly narrow lanes up and down the steepest possible slopes we've stumbled across little communities which look virtually unchanged certainly in the hundred years since Evans was there but seemingly for hundreds of more years before that this part of the Cotswolds really is extraordinary which calm was mentioned of course in the Domesday book of 1086 and whilst the abbey thrived pilgrims came from far and wide to visit the shrine to some Canal situated in the abbey itself and also to the Cistercian monastery at Hales a couple of miles north of the village where they displayed a file said to contain the blood of Christ this kind of tourism sustained the village well and of course they benefited also from the wool trade which was such a big part of the Cotswolds successes in the Middle Ages the monasteries were however in decline and at the dissolution in 1539 wench comes fortunes also suffered by the early 1800s the people here were looking for alternative ways to make a living they took the controversial route of growing tobacco which annoyed the authorities who saw it as competition for their plantations in Virginia not for the first time we see that part of the reason for the unspoiled beauty of this village is the lack of constant commercial success this meant the buildings were largely unchanged and development was minimal when Evans passed through here in 1904 he stayed at the White Hart was were about to visit in a minute or two but he wrote in his book as I passed the gorge which is where I'm standing on my way to my quarters at the White Hart I noticed the letters are K carved upon the old lintel on the archway just above here these are the initials of Richard Kidderminster the wealthy abbot in the time of Henry the seventh like many other wind c'mon he studied a Gloucester now Worcester College in Oxford which was then frecuency by members of all the great Benedictine monasteries in the province of Canterbury this ancient pub is now being converted into flats but retaining its medieval pilgrims gallery and courtyard so here I am outside the White House Hotel where Evans stayed in 1904 Ross and I are gonna go in and have a cup of coffee the beautiful countryside surrounding which come is criss crossed with footpaths nice and level along the river for the less energetic of view but also up and over the surrounding hills Ross widget and I are taking the one to nearby Sudeley castle which were hoping to visit in more detail in the near future and which plays a key part in the checkered history of the area the main difference between this place and most of the turns of this size that we visited before is that it winchman is not a market time it has no great square to give the town a sort of undisputed center the place meanders beautiful ancient streets stretch in all directions lined with shops and restaurants and hotels and pubs everything that a civilized human being should need and yet it retains a sort of residential cozy feel as you can probably hear I've rather fallen for this place I think it's in remarkable I wonder where the nearest estate agent is [Music] we're now traveling north about a mile and a half to visit the ruined Abbey of Hales descending from farm cut through the wood we find ourselves in a green Combe shut in by hills on all sides except the north on our right is the parish church in the meadow on our left a square plot enclosed by four ruined walls this is the cloister Garth of them once famous Cistercian monastery of Hale's nothing else remains the splendid Church the convential buildings the approaches the gatehouse the precinct walls all have gone there is nothing above ground but these ruined walls to tell of the vast edifice of which they once formed so small apart a few years would suffice for the destruction of all that for three centuries had been the object of veneration neither here nor a twinge come two miles away was it any outburst of popular fanaticism or any violent manifestation of popular hostility that overthrew the shrines and pulled down the walls of these two magnificent churches the demolition was deliberate and systematic it was a mere matter of business proceeding upon a cool calculation of profit and loss that these buildings were landmarks in the history of the National Church that they were the supreme efforts of constructive art was quite beside the question it was enough that on utilitarian grounds they stood condemned neither of them was needed either for a cathedral as a Gloucester or for a parish church as a Tewksbury why then should they any longer come by the ground rather let them be swept away at once and their materials put to some more profitable use so at any rate thought the man who was responsible for their destruction Thomas Lord Seymour of Sudeley Lord High Admiral of England and brother-in-law of the King both Abbey's have been granted to him at the dissolution in 1539 and he was not the man to lose any time in making the most of his acquisition it would no doubt be unfair to condemn him on this count alone nine out of ten men in his day estimable citizens enough according to their lights would have done the same but for Thomas Seymour it is impossible on any count to feel either sympathy or respect so thoroughly were his orders in each case carried out but not a single stone of either Church remains in it has been only in recent years that excavations have discovered their foundations and given us indisputable evidence of their former splendor the small parish church of Hale's stands close beside the abbey originally built in the 12th century it passed on the foundation of the monastery into the possession of the monks and was much altered by them the fragments of the original church which were remain of the shafts of the chancel arch and the two pilasters which support the South chancel wall the site is now looked after by English Heritage who have a fascinating Visitor Centre where you can find out in detail about the remarkable history of the building and wander the cloisters imagining yourself overruled by the beauty of what used to be we're heading up into the hills again now into the woods into the villages of gritting and then north towards Broadway this part of the Cotswolds is so beautiful we're gonna have a really nice journey this village of gritting power or lower gritting features heavily in Evans book he describes the dilapidation of the place in 1900 and to the cottages were empty unlit and unloved the church almost a ruin in 1903 however money had been raised restoration of a gun and the village in church started to take on the timeless beauty and peace it portrays today this is absolutely classic Cotswolds countryside sleepy restful honey colored it's almost corny in its perfection the church standing at the end of the village was almost completely restored in 1903 but a sign on the priest all reads at the restoration in 1903 this chancel doorway and small window were not disturbed on the way to Broadway we were tempted by the sign to snows Hill I'm very glad we were as we follow Evans's 1905 cycle ride around the amazing Cotswolds and we read his book as we go he often mentions that being adventurous pays off he's suggesting that if you're travelling on your own and you're not in a big party that it's worth going off the main roads to check out the little villages and nothing illustrates this more dramatically than this extraordinary little village of snows Hill traveling north from the greetings we dropped off the main road and into this tiny village nestled in the folds of the hills and it's the most startling a beautiful place you've ever seen the church was actually built in Victorian times so it's comparatively modern it's an interesting story no one's absolutely sure what happened to the original Church in snows Hill it seems to have disappeared although they've clearly been worshipping here for many hundreds of years it was built with an idea that it should have a spire on top but the money ran out before that was built and as a result you end up with this rather odd Square topped Tower with no cast elation and no real decoration on the top it's an unusual thing just penury I'm afraid this village is wonderful please don't come here unless you're travelling light but it is so beautiful if you are it's worth it it snows Hill lives up to its name and if there is snow in the Cotswolds there will be snow here it's also well known for its local lavender farms one of which I believe supplies the Cotswolds distillery with its lavender gin botanical we're now heading north towards the wonderful town of Broadway now Broadway is smaller than most of the other famous cuts world towns and it's right at the northern tip of the region in fact we're actually in Worcestershire but we're surrounded on three sides by the rather more familiar Cutts world country of Gloucestershire it's mainly famous for its beautiful high street lined with chestnut trees and these golden beautiful Cotswold stone buildings and a plethora of shops pubs cafes and hotels it's frankly worth visiting Broadway just for the high street filming as we are at 5:00 a.m. on a summer's day you get a feeling for what it was that first attracted the group who became known as the Broadway group - this pretty Worcestershire village the rose colored buildings mostly built with stone from the quarry's on Broadway Hill to the south of us give on an extraordinary sense of peace the early morning sounds of the milkman making his deliveries the delicatessen owners stacking his fresh produce onto ancient wooden market barrows and displaying them in front of his shop and a small band of men in the apparently obligatory bright yellow coats picking up any detritus left from the previous day this peaceful scene is probably as close as we'll get that which Frances Millay an expat American painter and illustrator happened upon in the mid 1880s it was perfect timing on melees part for a fashion was developing in England for artists to gather in groups and form colonies away from the smelly noisy and generally uninspiring life in the cities they can be found in Cornwall Yorkshire and Suffolk as well as here in Broadway Millay a man dressed with some private well first acquired Farnham house in Broadway - living with his family and shortly afterwards when it became obvious that he'd be joined by many of his creative friends he bought an old monastic ruin called a bird's Grange which he restored just enough to turn it into a studio where they could all work into this idyllic environment came the painters John Singer Sargent Edwin Abbey alfred past also a well-known garden designer illustrator george bolton edwin bosch field the english illustrator fred bernard and the writers henry james and Edmund Gosse for an impressive group whatever the was one gauss wrote of the grange at the time a medieval ruin a small ecclesiastical edifice which was very roughly repaired so as to make it a kind of refuge for us and there in the morning Henry James and I would write while Abbey and Millay painted on the floor below and Sargent and Parsons tilted their easels just outside we're all within shouting distance and not much serious work was done from you were in towering spirits and everything was food for laughter Henry James was the only sedate one of all benign indulgence but grave and not often unbending beyond the genial chuckle it does seem Henry James was the only calming influence amongst this rather rowdy group and it's not clear how much of an influence he really had in the best tradition of artistic communities they were a lively and colorful Bunch confident in the value of creative life and the contribution they would make to the rest of the world they were certainly not great contributors to the peace and tranquility of Broadway Edmund Gosse also wrote nothing we do scandalizes the villagers Fred Barnard within an enormous stage slouch hat every shoulders chased one of the Americans down the street the man chased screaming all the time in trying to escape up lampposts and Dan wells not a villager smiled whatever we do or say we're all same they only say them Americans is out again now fully restored The Grange is an extremely upmarket B&B surely worth a visit towards the end of the nineteenth century this community like all those before and after started to wear out it's an inevitability that such passion and enthusiasm will wilt with time but the legacy these young rebellious and hugely created people left behind is seen in the eyes of those thousands of people from all around the world who visit this village year the group dispersed Abbi boathouse in Fairford south of here and was followed by sergeant and eventually Henry James Malay was later to die in the Titanic disaster in 1912 struggling up the escarpment to the south of the town on a road called fish hill it becomes clear why Broadway became a coaching stop for those traveling between Worcester and Oxford the hill is extremely steep and would have required fresh horses to tackle it way up on the hill above Broadway is the Broadway Tower which you see behind me the original concept for this extraordinary building was her had by capability brand the famous 18th century Landscape Architect it was put into practice by the 6th Earl of Coventry who commissioned an architect called James Wyatt to design and build this rather remarkable small castle it has a wonderful history it was used by William Morris and his business as a retreat and many other artists came here will tell you a little bit about it as we look around the tower has been inspirational for a variety of creative people Thomas Phillips had his early printing press here he was one of the greatest ever collectors of books and manuscripts and many of the Arts and Crafts movement used the building as a kind of 19th century holiday let the pre-raphaelites artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti Edward burne-jones and William Morris himself were frequent visitors and it was here that Morris began his campaign for the preservation of historic monuments actually hang on a minute I do remember saying something similar about the church in Burford perhaps it's slightly tricky to be completely certain where these things begin it has however one of the most extraordinary views in the country it is said you can see 13 different countries from up here from Broadway we had northeast towards chipping Camden winter is closing in and fur coats of the order of the day but still the beauty of the Cotswolds shines through the name of this ancient settlement is anglo-saxon campus - word for a settlement den is the word for a valley so this means a settlement in a valley the word Chipping refers to the market was awarded to this village in 1175 by king henry ii like many of these most beautiful of the villages in the Cotswolds it's beauty is partly down to its lack of commercial success very successful villages were redeveloped and constantly added to but places like chicken camden that suffered something of a rollercoaster of a history have remained as beautiful as ever right from the very beginning we're going to show you around probably at the beginning of the 17th century Sabac 'test hicks endowed one of the finest examples of Cotswold stone arms houses to provide accommodation for six poor men and six poor women who were given an annual allowance of three shillings and fourpence a frieze gown a ton of coal and a felt hat will be it updated to me 21st century requirements they still provide inexpensive homes for twelve people originally the water supply for the houses was from one outside tap still visible in the wall of the pavement despite modernization however their appearance remains almost completely unchanged this terrific example of local market buildings was built in 1627 for the princely sum of 90 pounds by some baptist hicks it was a merchant a moneylender and the first Lord Camden it's a little startling how often we find as we travel through the Cotswolds but so many of the powerful people in the 14th and 15th centuries would payday lenders the old silk mill in Sheep Street was built in 1780 it specialized in throwing or spinning silk and went some way to replacing the jobs lost in the collapse of the all trade after the silk business in turn collapsed in 1860 the mill closed not to reopen until 1902 when the guild of handicraft part of William Morris's Arts and Crafts movement relocated from London and set up shop the silversmiths Hicks is working in their original studio to this day probably occupied in the Bronze Age and certainly familiar to the people of the Iron Age Camden was settled by the roman west of the village of the foot of dover hill there's evidence of Roman villas and what seems likely to be man-made terracing built for roman vineyard sets in a natural amphitheatre formed by the folds of the Cotswolds dover Hill was the site of the annual Dover's Games known nowadays as the Cotswolds Olympics they started in 1612 and apart from the old hiatus as a result of the increasingly drunken behavior of visitors these games have been held ever since today they take place on the Friday following with Sunday and encompass many rural sports including the ancient and painful activity of shin kicking in around 1610 the manor of Camden was bought by once a Baptist Hicks and shortly afterwards he set about building a grand country house that Perfetti stages and he styled himself the first Lord Camden he doesn't seem to have spend much time here and when he died in 1629 in the house an estate passed to his daughter Juliana in January 1645 during the civil war Camden was occupied by royalist troops under Colonel Henry bard who urgently set about the fortification of the house however in May the same year the garrison was moved westwards and seemingly in order to avoid the newly fortified house falling into the hands of the parliamentarians it was set alight and razed to the ground no doubt a good deal of the stone will have been reused in the building of the village of Camden and now all that's left is a few ruins the spectacular gate and the two jacobean bankrupting houses now under the care of the landmark trust who make them available as holiday let's behind me is the Church of st. James chip in Camden one of the single most spectacular of all the world churches in the Cotswolds this is a range of churches paid for largely out of the proceeds of the wool industry this is the one of the most spectacular of all there was a Norman Church on this site originally slightly squat with a square tower but around 1260 the transformation from that into what you see behind me started when it was to take nearly 250 years we're heading southeast now seemingly miraculously in much better weather towards Morton and Marsh I've got into such trouble for calling it morton-in-the-marsh every years please forgive me for any slips of the town the first evidence of human settlement at what we now know as Morton in Marsh dates to the Bronze Age but following the Roman invasion the Roman armies began building the foss way a major road that runs from Exeter to Lincoln it was completed by the end of the 1st century and passes through Morton and Marsh the original Roman Road lying just a few feet below the present surface of the High Street by the 11th century the town was at the property of Westminster Abbey and from 1222 to 1226 the abbot began developing Morton as a mark in town creating the wide High Street for this purpose in the late 1220 s building of the town began on common land bordering the phosphate to the northwest of the original Saxon settlement the town in this period was mainly agricultural sheep being the most important source of income the town avoided any direct involvement in the civil war although King Charles the first did stay a night at the White Hart Union 1644 and Oliver Cromwell stayed in Morton in 1651 to take communion with the Baptist's curfew tower at the junction of High Street and Oxford Street was probably built in the 16th century and has a curfew bell in its turret with a small room at its base that was once used as a lockup by the 17th century the town's population was around 500 the establishment of a linen weaving Factory in 1742 encouraging further growth more than several Inns offered shelter to travelers passing through and at one point in the 1820s some 70 coaches were roaming through this town each week the opening of a horse-drawn tram way to stratford-on-avon in 1826 followed by the mainline railway from Worcester to Oxford in 1853 created a further increase in population the first and second world wars affected Morton significantly with the loss of many young local men commemorated on the town's High Street War Memorial RAF Morton in Marsh the inspiration for the much banding in the marsh radio comedy show that ran from 1944 to 1954 was constructed to the east of the town in 1939 for the training of Wellington bomber crews the time continued to modernize and develop following the Second World War and has for some time been one of the principal growth areas of the North Cotswolds the 21st century has seen considerable housing development in and around Morton with the railway and two trunk roads busier than ever before the locals are beginning to ask the question just how much more expansion can the town's existing infrastructure cope with well we've had an interesting trip around molten in Marsh it's a clearly a very busy place even at the crack of dawn when we film it's noisy and full of activity there's a great sense of life here we've had a nice time there are some of clearly some very good hotels to stay and it's worth a visit for episode 4 of our compilations we'll be starting in the amazing villages of upper and lower slaughter going south through boughten on the water and following Evans to north Leach and east so Bertha and Whitney if you haven't already done so don't forget to subscribe to the channel by clicking on the button below and we'll see you shortly

Channel: The Cotswold Explorer

Views: 101,196

Rating: 4.9185185 out of 5

Keywords: Winchcombe, Broadway, Hailes Abbey, Snowshill, Cotswolds, Broadway Cotswolds, Places to see in the Cotswolds, Chipping Campden, Moreton in Marsh, Cheltenham, Broadway Tower, The Cotswold Explorer, Documentary, TV Show, Robin Shuckburgh, Snowshill Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire

Id: x7iFdUod0cM

Length: 29min 1sec (1741 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 22 2019