So Taylor Swift is reportedly staying in the Chipping Norton area this summer, escaping fans between gigs by renting a ‘secret’ property for £3,000 a night. What a smart move, in every respect. She enjoys picturesque tranquility and also taps into the British obsession that is the Cotswolds. But what is going on with this area of central England – why this fixation, no longer just national but now global? From celebrities descending on residents of honey-stone villages complaining about ‘overtourism’, no other part of the country seems to get as much top billing and lavish attention.
In the decade-plus since I moved to the area, the Cotswolds have become palpably richer, with house prices soaring and the luxury hotel offering continuing to raise the bar in luxury (with cinemas, exclusive-use spas, dinner dishes made to personal order, and more). For my money, it’s all down to three factors: accessibility; beauty – that soft, time-consuming landscape, complete with golden villages; and a follow-the-crowd fixation with the celebrities, adding stardust and cool.
How did it all start? With sheep. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest use of the noun ‘Cotswold’ was in the mid-16th century, although the term (from ‘cots’, meaning animal house, and ‘wold’, for hilly land) is probably much older. . It was an area almost in the heart of England and within easy reach of London, the Midlands and Bristol; still of course. Around the time ‘Cotswold’ first appeared as a written word, the area’s wool trade was at its peak, with wealth giving rise to the creation of huge, beautiful mansions – which today become glamorous hotels and fabulous homes of the illustrious, or at least the super-rich.
Of course, members of the royal family also owned estates, from Sudeley Castle to Woodstock Palace, which was a forerunner of the gigantic Blenheim building. In his pocket this was an area for the glitterati: in 1681 Charles II took his court to Burford, mainly to watch the horse races on the then thriving track eight miles from the town.
Artists came. In the 19th century, William Morris rented Broadway Tower as an eccentric holiday home and rented out the 17th century manor house in Kelmscott.
Yet in the first part of the 20th century the Cotswolds were a hinterland. Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie tells about rural poverty in the Slad Valley in the 1920s. At the same time, and at the opposite end of the social ladder, the Mitford sisters lived in the northern Cotswolds; While the youngest, ‘Debo’, loved the area, Jessica and the others often referred to their village, Swinbrook, as Swinebrook and saw it as a bleak backwater.
Even in the 1980s there was a lack of sophistication; a friend in Moreton-in-Marsh remembers how there was only one decent restaurant in the area at the time, the Marsh Goose (an Italian outlet of ASK is now in its place, but there are plenty more foodie options). When did the Cotswolds gain their modern-day cachet?
The creation of Carole Bamford’s extraordinarily expensive Daylesford Organic farm shop in 2002 heralded not so much gentrification as moneyed chic. The same year saw the opening of the Cowley Manor hotel near Cheltenham, delighting critics with its new brand of funky style. Fast forward to 2015, when the opening of the spectacularly rural Soho Farmhouse cemented the Cotswolds as the ultimate English playground.
The region had quietly attracted several people into the public eye, such as Pam Ayres and Jilly Cooper, but now celebrities were seemingly buying into the Cotswolds in droves; including Amanda Holden in 2012, the Beckhams in 2016 and Simon Cowell in 2021. The burgeoning summer festivals also added a healthy dose of hip: Wilderness in Cornbury Park and The Big Feastival, on the farm of Blur bass guitarist Alex James. , both started in 2011.
But has the impact of all this affected the Cotswolds? Has it become too messy, too commercial? That largely depends on where you’re going. It’s like there are parallel universes in the Cotswolds. Avoid the honey traps such as Stow-on-the-Wold, Burford, Bibury and Bourton-on-the-Water (where residents made headlines in May this year when they protested against tourist hordes and parking chaos) and it’s perfectly possible to beautiful, quiet villages, often hidden in small, winding streets.
My neighbour, Elaine, now in her sixties, has lived near Chipping Norton all her life and was equivocal when I asked her about tourism, commenting that although our village is still ‘nice and peaceful’, just as it has been for many people. decades, the village pub has been a different story. It was sold and renovated a few years ago and is now a sleek and luxurious location like so many others in the area. “That is a great shame for the local community,” she said.
Conversely, for Sue Heady, a former PR manager in London who came to live in the Cotswolds sixteen years ago, there are positives in that “the Cotswold type of high-end tourism has really raised the quality of pubs and restaurants, plus there is a cosmopolitan, a lively atmosphere in many places that used to be a bit boring”. But there is also a big negative point. “The biggest change,” she said, “is the explosion of weekend and holiday rentals, and this has devastated the community in many villages. Suddenly you no longer have a neighbor, just an endless stream of passing strangers.”
Meanwhile, anyone trying to drive along the A361 just south of Chipping Norton on a festive or school holiday will almost inevitably find themselves in a serious traffic jam, with cars parked on the side of the road. Since the beginning of Amazon Prime’s series three Clarkson’s Farm, the queues at Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat farm shop have become the subject of hellish legend. Yet some local residents respond generously.
John Cull, a Cotswolds community champion, pointed out that while farmer Clarkson isn’t exactly flavor of the month for many in the area, he is actually in tune with the local spirit “by involving local characters quite brilliantly : Kaleb, Gerald – these are real. Cotswold people dealing with real issues.” But for true Cotswold identity, Cull says there is so much to enjoy beyond the hotspot destinations, of which Diddly Squat has become a frontrunner. “If you’re curious, explore and talk to the locals; you get a sense of the soul of the Cotswolds,” he added.
Whether nearby Bourton-on-the-Water can retain much of its soul remains to be seen. Rumor has it that Clarkson plans to run the Coach and Horses pub near the already overwhelmed village and opposite his Hawkstone brewery. The building dates from the 18th century and is in poor condition, and Clarkson would like to invest and support local agriculture by serving locally produced food. The municipality is reportedly afraid that the access roads will not be able to cope. And, hey, is the parking lot big enough for an unrelenting onslaught of vehicles?
Whatever the arguments and the outcome, current concerns seem a far cry from the pastoral, sheep-like past of the Cotswolds.