Cotswolds

We had initially planned to visit Bristol and walk the Banksy art trail today. But we heard good things about Wells, Cheddar and Castle Combe, which were all in the vicinity of Bath, and changed our plans so we could visit them instead. From Bath, we headed south west to Wells. For much of the way we travelled on narrow roads bordered by hedgerows. Beyond the hedgerows on both sides of the road, green pastures stretched as far as the eye could see. At one point, it was a particularly tight squeeze as two large trucks travelling in opposite directions barely managed to get past each other.

Wells is a small city in Somerset. It’s famous for its cathedral, but also boasts that it is officially England’s smallest city. If we’d kept on going past Wells for another 23 miles, we would have come to a village called North Curry. It was here in 1795 that Elizabeth Celey, my five times great grandmother, stole some clothing and passed it on to her mother, Elizabeth Vicary. Betty Celey was convicted of theft of apparel and sentenced to be transported to New South Wales for a term of seven years, and her mother was convicted of receiving stolen goods and sentenced to be transported for a term of fourteen years. At about the same time that this was happening, the resident Bishops of Wells Cathedral were living quite luxuriously in the fabulous Bishop’s Palace and Garden adjacent to the cathedral. We only had a short time available to us to visit Wells, so we opted not to enter the cathedral. It was still very impressive when viewed from the outside, even though one wall was undergoing restoration that obscured much of it from view.

We met people who told us the story of the swans that swim in the moat. Grace and her partner Gabriel are the parents of six small cygnets. When we arrived, Grace swam over to where we were standing, keeping her young ones close. Gabriel sat silently between two adolescent swans on the lawn, eyeing them off. If either of those swans tried to get into the water and swim over to be fed, Gabriel would chase him away. Locals expect the two adolescents to soon fly off elsewhere, leaving Grace and Gabriel to raise their family as a unit in the Palace moat. One time long ago, a bishop’s daughter trained the swans to ring a bell when they wanted to be fed. The tradition was passed on, and today the adult swans know how to ring the bell and receive food as a reward. How clever.

We drove on to Cheddar, which was quite a small village. There didn’t seem to be many parking spaces and we didn’t spot anywhere we wanted to visit, so we kept driving through. But it was another charming rural village and, of course, the home of cheddar cheese, so I’m glad I’ve at least had the chance to see it. Just an hour or so later, in Castle Combe, I had a chance to taste some local cheddar cheese when I ordered a ploughman’s sandwich at the pub for lunch. It was stuffed full of tasty grated cheddar cheese. We drove on through Bristol without stopping. My paternal great great grandparents, Jeremiah Cother and Jane Sutton, were married in St Paul’s church in Portland Square, Bristol, in 1848. Four years later, they emigrated to Geelong, where Jeremiah worked as a wool sorter.

From Bristol we made our way to Castle Combe. The name is a misnomer, as Castle Combe is actually a small rural village, rather than a castle (that was demolished centuries ago). We drove down a very narrow lane to reach the village, then discovered there was nowhere to park and very little room to turn the hire car around. Rod did a good job of doing so, and eventually we found a parking spot on the side of the road we came in on. We took our time strolling down through the village. It is absolutely charming in every sense of the word. A google search reveals that some people consider it the most beautiful village in all of England. A number of movies and TV series have been filmed here, which is no surprise as the current configuration of the village really represents a little slice of time from a bygone era. Castle Combe lies within a corner of the Cotswolds (Cotwolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The village basically features only stone cottages, all of which are centuries old. The most recent new house in Castle Combe was built in the 1600s. Many houses feature either a colourful front garden or, in some cases, a climbing ivy or wisteria or similar. We found a table in the beer garden out the back of the White Hart Inn for lunch. If it hadn’t been for a conversation with the hotel manager in Bath yesterday, we would never have heard of Castle Combe, so it was a lucky accident that I was able to stroll down its main street (simply named The Street) the following day. I’m so glad we came here.

We drove on to Stroud, where we intended to stop for a coffee. Rod drove round the town in circles trying to find a parking space, but parking didn’t seem to be allowed anywhere. Eventually we found a place in the railway station carpark. But we thought the better of stopping any longer, and decided to forget about the coffee break and head straight to Cardiff, which would be our final stop for the night. Stroud, incidentally, was the home town of my aforementioned great great grandfather Jeremiah Cother and generations of Cothers before him. At least, I can proudly say I’ve been there – albeit only very briefly. We crossed the very long Prince of Wales Bridge over the Severn River into Wales.

It wasn’t hard to tell we were suddenly in South Wales, because all the roadside signs now contained both English and Welsh placenames and instructions. I struggle to pronounce anything in Welsh. I think it must be a really challenging language to learn. We drove on into Cardiff, where, thankfully, our hotel had a reserved parking space for us. We’re staying in a really cool property named Lincoln House. It matches all the other buildings on Cathedral Street. I only wish I had a room on the ground floor, as carrying the heavy suitcases up to the third floor was hard work. Nevertheless, I love the place, and I’m looking forward to having a good look around Cardiff tomorrow.