March 27, 2015
Interesting experience at the Oxford train station: we asked for tickets to Chipping Campen and the window clerk acted like we wanted to go to Tanzania. We finally helped him put together our connections. An early train brought us to Moreton in Marsh by 9 AM, where we had a wait for the bus to Chipping Campden. We walked around the little town, or at least down the High Street. Rather nice little place, probably at the edge of the tourist area to judge by the shops.
The bus took us by roundabout ways to Chipping Campden, passing through Broadway, so we kind of had that surprise taken away.
Chipping Campden is a lovely little market town, with the glowing honey limestone buildings that are typical of this end of the Cotswolds. So of the buildings date to the 12th century, and the whole place has an 18th century feel. We walked up to the extraordinary parish church, St. James, with its beautiful interior chapels and tombs for the local gentry.
The churchyard is lovely, with views to the ruins of Campden House, once the manor house for the region (now only a banqueting hall and a monumental gate are left standing).
The center of town is dominated by the old market hall.
It was miserably cold and damp. I had neglected to bring hat and gloves, and Sue badly needed tights. She found some nice ones in a ladies store, but there was no outdoor store in Chipping Campden, so I was out of luck.
We called a car service and a very nice older gentleman drove us to Hidcote Manor so that Sue could see a famous garden.
The place was created by an “American,” or rather the child of American parents, since he never lived in America. He took an old major house and turned the gardens into arts and crafts “rooms” that spread down a hill with broad vistas onto the Cotswold escarpment.
Spring was late in England, and not much was out, but Sue enjoyed seeing the garden’s “bones.”
Back in Chipping Campden, it was already after 2, and we needed to get walking so that we could meet Andrew in Broadway, six miles away. That didn’t stop us from warding off the cold with a cream tea at the Badger Tea Room. This was the best scone of the trip, and the cream and jam were quite nice as well.
Thus fortified, we set off, first through the streets of the town and then uphill into the open countryside. We were soon on the broad, flat top of Drover’s Hill, a National Trust property with beautiful views out and along the escarpment.
We had been following an English couple who were also doing part of the Cotswold Way, but, at the end of Drover’s Hill they plunged down a grassy slope. We followed and caught a last glimpse of them as they climbed over a gate. The gate was locked, and I knew that we were off trail.
Unlike the info on the West Highland Way, you really need the narrative description here: we were soon back up the hill, across a car park, and paralleling a road running east. We never saw the couple again!
The seclusion of Drover’s Hill gave way to a broad, grassy path called the Mile Drive; at its end we crossed two large fields and encountered a bench on a viewpoint with a topograph.
After walking around a quarry, we were in some really gorgeous fields set on high rolling hills; we were surrounded by sheep as we walked along enjoying the expansive views to the north. Broadway Tower, an eighteenth century folly conceived by Capability Brown, soon came into view; it is the highest point on the Cotswolds Way.
The trail then turned steeply downhill, passing through terraced pastures owned by the Broadway Trust. The views down to Broadway village and beyond were very nice.
We spoke with a very nice English couple who had a lovely young cocker spaniel, the made our way down and into the village. It really is a beautiful place, with the same honey stone that we had seen in Chipping Campden.
The well-stocked outdoor store yielded Icebreaker lightweight merino gloves and hat for me…thank god, since i really used them in the days to come.
Andrew pulled up in the X3 right on time, and we were soon making our way back across the escarpment and south west toward the cottage Lucy had rented in a hamlet called Calcot (near Northleach). This was a really beautiful, comfortable place, with a huge eat-in kitchen, a living room with wood burning stove, a playroom for Evie, and lots of bedrooms (which we needed, since Cora had come along for the weekend to help).
We ate in the first night, feasting on Cora’s Thai green curry and lots of beer. A really nice, if chilly first day!