Broadway in the Cotswolds

On day 7 of our trip to England in July we decided to visit the little town of Broadway in the Cotswolds. We arrived early which is always a good plan when you know big tourist buses would probably arrive at noon.

There are just enough shops to enjoy strolling through without feeling overwhelmed.

Plenty of Inns with pubs and other types of restaurants to eat in.

I enjoyed seeing this old couple heading over to the Tea Room.

We decided to eat at the Crown & Trumpet before we left Broadway.

We enjoyed chatting with the locals who gave us many recommendations and opinions about a good brew, good food, politics, and good places to visit in England.

Some people might find some pubs to be a little too cozy. We enjoy the atmosphere in most of the older pubs. We avoid the newer ones.

I better keep moving along or I’ll never be done with my posts from our time in England. This was our last full day in the Cotswolds and on our way to our next self-catering location in Ross-on-Wye we made two stops. One of the stops was in Bourton-on-the-Water and then we stopped at Gloucester Cathedral.

Today back in the real world it’s Friday and I’ve got to get outside and mow the lawn and tidy up a bit. We have a quiet weekend ahead. On Sunday our church will not have regular services. We’ve been called to go out into our neighborhood schools and help the teachers and staff get the grounds and classrooms ready for the school year. We will scrub desks, clean out planters, pressure wash, and do other projects as a support of the communities we live in. We call it Community Serve Day. Hope you all have a nice weekend.

Fences ~ Cotswolds

Here’s one rustic fence from the little town of Broadway in the Cotswolds.

Linking up with TexWisGirl at Run*A*Round Ranch Report for Good Fences #22.

There’s good news back here in the burbs of Seattle. Our kids have moved most of their stuff into their new apartment that is walking distance to the school our Son-in-law will be attending. There are some job opportunities on the horizon, too. Here’s a fence from their complex.

Toadstool Fences ~ Bourton on the Water

On our way to Ross on Wye and our 2nd self-catering cottage we stopped in Bourton on the Water for a very short visit. This is where we saw this unique toadstool fence by the river and across the street in front of this next building.

There were a couple more fences in town that caught my eye.

I’m linking up to Good Fences #21 with TexWisGirl at Run*A*Round Ranch Report for this weekly meme. TexWisGirl is the hostess with the mostess!

The week is flying by. I’m surprised and happy to report our traveling kids might have already chosen an apartment and it has quick occupancy. Their pod of possessions has not arrived in the Seattle area yet (probably on Monday) so the idea of emptying out the pod into an apartment is more appealing than emptying it out into our garage and then moving it all again. Andrew was able to transfer his driver’s license yesterday in record time at the DMV. It’s wonderful when things work efficiently. Now if only I can get back into an efficient routine.

InSPIREd Sunday ~ St Michael and All Angels’ Church

While we spent a morning in the Cotswold town of Broadway we enjoyed a visit to this church just down the road from the Pub we were going to have lunch at. The present parish church, built in 1840, and dedicated to St. Michael and All Angels, is a building with nave, two aisles and chancel.

Its chief antiquity is the pulpit, which is a fine piece of wood carving, and was transferred from the old church. It was reconstructed and part of it was used to form a chair which had since been stolen from the sanctuary.

We were intrigued with these ornate Eagle lecterns that we saw in most of the churches and cathedrals we visited in England. I researched to see the significance of this design. Here’s one explanation:

THE FLYING eagle is the symbol of John the Evangelist (see Revelation, ch 4, v 7) who proclaimed Christ as ‘the Word of God’ at the beginning of his Gospel. The flying eagle is thus a suitable emblem from which God’s word is read, reaching (we hope) the ends of the earth. The eagle is also thought of as the bird which flies nearest to heaven. I am not sure such lecterns are confined just to the Anglican church. It was not until the Reformation that the lectern became prominent in ordinary parish churches of the reformed tradition, carrying the open bible.

This is my favorite Stained Glass Window from this church and appropriate for a church named St Michael and All Angels Church.

I love old doors of all kinds and this door into the church is very cool.

InSPIREd Sunday is hosted by Beth and Sally. This is a weekly meme devoted to sharing religious architecture from around the world.

Hope your Sunday is going well.

Hidcote Garden

Monday July 7th was a two garden day for us in the Cotswolds. The first garden was a National Trust property. Our one year membership had not expired yet so we got to go in without paying the entrance fee. We visited this garden with our daughter Katie back in 2004 but I wasn’t aware that this was an American’s vision.

This quiet American’s name was Major Lawrence Johnston. He began to create the garden in 1907. Over the space of 30 years he transformed a field containing just a few trees to one of the country’s great Arts and Crafts gardens.

During the 1920’s Johnston traveled the world taking part in many plant hunting expeditions. He carefully selected only the finest plants to bring back to his garden.

The sweet bird decided to sit long enough for a photo-op. We enjoyed our stroll through Hidcote and quenched our thirst with a Ginger Beer from the cafe. One nice thing about most of the National Trust and other museums and such that we visited were the nice cafes and refreshment options that were available on the properties.

From this wonderful garden we walked down the drive to the road to visit a garden just across the road from Hidcote. I’ll share the photos from Kiftsgate Court Gardens soon.

Back in the States:

During our bathroom renovation I feel trapped here since I’m not comfortable leaving the house while worker bees are busy inside my home. As the saying goes “this, too, shall pass”. We are recovering a little each day from our jet lag and are able to sleep a little longer each day. Dear went back to work on Monday and was pretty wiped out when he arrived home. He had a hard time keeping his eyes open past 6 p.m. We have had some overcast days here and we were happy to hear that a little rain fell in the areas ravaged by brush fires here in the State of Washington. Hoping the thunderstorms predicted don’t cause any problems for the firefighters.

A Fortnight Ago…

…we enjoyed re-discovering Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds. We shopped at the butcher’s, the green grocers, and a few specialty shops along the main road through town. We bought sausages, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, butter, bread, and Cotswold cheese to take back to Fox Cottage.

We found some gifts to bring home for our girls.

We enjoyed the beautiful architecture of the churches in this town. When we got hungry and thirsty we stopped in at…

Pubs have come a long way in England and they are very family friendly and have some good selection of food. Some of course are better than others and we happened to find some very good ones where the wait staff was great and the food was exceptional.

On this day the Eight Bells had sardines on the menu as a main course or appetizer. Since we’ve never, that we can remember, seen sardines on a menu we decided to try the appetizer. They were quite good with a lovely sauce.

This was my proper pie with all the trimmings. The description from the menu: Chicken, Ham and asparagus short-crust pastry pie (with top and bottom), white wine sauce, new potatoes and peas. It was delicious. We had a fun conversation with our waitress on “proper pie”. She was appalled when she ordered pie at another establishment and it came to her with no upper or lower crust but just a round piece of pastry propped up along one side of the filling. It was cute when she exclaimed “how can they call that pie?!”

We also had many of my questions answered by one of the bartenders at Eight Bells. We discussed what was going on at the World Cup in Brazil and talked about futbol in general. Many pubs feature a good selection of beer made at local breweries. After eating and quenching our thirst we were brave enough to venture out on the narrow lanes again.

From Chipping Campden we made our way to Snowshill and I will devote a whole post about that quaint little village.

Cheers From England ~ Day #8

Today is Friday and it was moving day for us. We moved from our quiet sprawling cottage in the Cotswolds to a small 2 story cottage near Ross on Wye. We are just off a B road so this little spot will be a little noisier during the day. On the way to our new location we stopped in Bourton on the Water and in Gloucester to visit the cathedral and The Tailor of Gloucester Beatrix Potter shop close to the cathedral.

Bourton on the Water

Gloucester Cathedral

After we spent some time in the cathedral that was magnificent we found the Beatrix Potter shop and made a little purchase and then headed to our second lodging spot close to Ross on Wye. We got settled in and headed to Ross to find a bite to eat. We ate at a cafe and made at stop at the butcher for sausages and the supermarket for eggs, bread, tomatoes, and mushrooms as we’ve missed our traditional breakfasts the last few mornings. We are now relaxing in the wee cottage.

The view from our upstairs bedroom window looking east. Not too shabby!

And here are the stairs I will have to navigate if I need to use the facilities in the middle of the night…oh my…

I’ll let you know how it goes. We have two areas we want to explore while we are in this part of England and time will tell which towns we will visit first.

We are in touch with family and friends via the internet and so thankful that we have that luxury being across the world from them. So much happens when we are apart and it’s good to be able to communicate daily if we need to. I specifically chose places that offered free wifi and am very glad I did since I do not use my cell internationally. We’ve heard that Heathrow security is confiscating cell phones if the batteries are dead so I will need to turn my cell phone on airplane mode before we hit security to make sure they can see that my battery is just fine.

We also hear the the temps in at our old house in Washington State are hitting the 90’s this weekend. Maybe it will stunt my grass and weeds from growing too much while we are gone. How are things going in your neck of the woods. Speaking of woods we are close to the Forest of Dean.

Cheers!

Cheers From England ~ Day #7

We had a leisurely morning in the cottage on Thursday. The sun was shining with not a cloud in the sky so we decided to take a short drive to the small town of Broadway in the Cotswolds. We arrived early enough to find a parking spot, walk along the rows of shops on High Street and miss the crowds that arrived while we enjoyed our pub meal at the Crown and Trumpet.

We enjoyed some conversation with the locals.

We still need to schedule our day so that we feel like sitting down to a proper tea. Mostly we’ve been doing tea time in the cottage.

All the small villages or towns we have been in have more than one Tea Room. I think we counted four or more here and there were coffee shops, too. We left Broadway with a larger than usual purchase that we’ll have to carry on the plane with us. It’s not bigger than a bread box! It is a bread box. I’ll show you it in my kitchen back home when I find a spot for it…

Tomorrow we move on to our next short stay at a self catering cottage in Ross on Wye. Packing and traveling will be on the schedule.

Back at our old house it is only 9:00 am and here at the really old cottage in the Cotswolds it is 5:00 p.m. while I finish up this post. Hope all is well in your time zone!

Stow on the Wold ~ Day #5

It’s Tuesday and our 5th day in Jolly Old England. Today we spent a more leisurely day taking a short drive to a nice market town, Stow on the Wold. I’m doing a full post about this little town today since we are relaxing the afternoon and evening away at the cottage.

We visited this town last September with Josh and Laura but we only spent about a half hour here. Today we spent close to 2 hours walking around.

“Ancient and historic Stow on-the Wold is the highest town in the Cotswolds standing 800 feet above sea level. Stow is located at the junction of six roads making it an important and natural meeting place of the Cotswolds. One of the renowned Cotswold routes meeting in Stow is the famous Roman road – The Fosse Way. “

“History and hospitality is never far away in Stow. Stow is the location of the oldest inn in England with a history reaching as far back as 987AD.”

“The Square is a reminder of Stow on the Wold’s heritage as the Cotswold’s major sheep market. In one of his Cotswold travels writer Daniel Defoe once recorded that 20,000 sheep were sold during a single day. Another reminder of Stow’s past is the little alleys leading from the market square. These were intentionally built narrow and winding as a way to control and count sheep.”

” The Kings Arms on the market square hosted King Charles I before the Battle of Naseby in 1645.”

I had to take a photo of this reader board outside to help me with the timeline that our visit includes with the last week of the World Cup taking place while we are here.

There were several different “thrift” stores in this little town that I enjoyed poking around in. I bought a couple of things easy to pack and bring home with me.

“A much later addition to Stow is St Edwards Hall in the market square. This was built in 1878. Money for the building came from funds left unclaimed in the town Savings Bank. The Hall houses the public library and exhibitions of Civil War artifacts.”

When I get back home I’ll do a full post on the church of St. Edward that Dear and I spent some time in today in Stow.

On our way back to the cottage we stopped at Warner Budgens supermarket in Moreton on Marsh to buy our takeaway dinner items. We chose a Cotswold locally fresh, not frozen, made Beef, Guinness and Ale Pie and some minted green vegetables.

Pricey but it was enough for both of us to split.

You should have seen the nice wedge of butter on top of these veggies, these were not frozen either, just ready to microwave.

The meal was delicious and it’s nice to enjoy a leisurely afternoon and evening at the cottage with the sun shining and a nice cool breeze blowing in the open windows. There’s Dear in the kitchen area of the cottage.

Tonight I plan to stay up late and watch Brazil play Germany in the World Cup Semi-finals. It’s so weird to think everyone in our home time zone are just beginning your day and we are winding down. Hope all is well wherever you find yourselves today.

O Father, Hear My Morning Prayer ~ Hymn

O Father, Hear My Morning Prayer

O Father, hear my morning prayer,
Thine aid impart to me,
That I may make my life today
Acceptable to Thee.

May this desire my spirit rule,
And, as the moments fly,
Something of good be born in me,
Something of evil die.

Some grace that seeks my heart to win,
With shining victory meet;
Some sin that strives for mastery
Find overthrow complete.

That so throughout the coming day
The hours shall carry me
A little farther from the world,
A little nearer Thee.

Words: Frances A. Percy

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Tag Archives: Cotswolds