107 - Cotswolds : Description

Physical and functional links to other National Character Areas

The Cotswold scarp, rising to 330 m, provides long, expansive views westwards over the Severn and Avon Vales to the Forest of Dean and Wales, to the Malvern and Shropshire hills and the nearby outliers such as Bredon Hill. From the dip slope, long easterly views can still be seen across the Vale of the White Horse to the North Wessex Downs and the Chilterns. Unlike the scarp, the eastern side of the National Character Area (NCA) merges gently with the neighbouring NCAs. The scarp forms the backdrop to the Severn and Avon Vales and in particular the setting for Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stroud and Bath, a World Heritage Site (WHS).

Most of the principal rivers in the NCA are tributaries of the Thames and flow south-eastwards into the Upper Thames Clay Vales, providing strong ecological and functional links. Rivers in the south and west flow into the River Avon and then the Severn Estuary. The area is underlain by a limestone aquifer, and both this and the rivers are a key supply of high-quality water for this and the surrounding areas, including the Cotswold Water Park.

The Cotswolds provide drinking water for populations as far away as Birmingham and London, but also provide outdoor recreation and learning, and many other services. The Cotswolds are also internationally renowned and popular with overseas visitors and as a domestic short-break and day-trip destination. There is an extensive network of public rights of way, particularly footpaths, including the start of the 184-mile Thames Path National Trail, the majority of the 102-mile Cotswold Way National Trail and parts of the National Cycle Network, which connect beyond the Cotswolds. The A46 and A429 run the length of the Cotswolds along the route of the former Roman road, the Fosse Way. The A41 follows the route of Akeman Street, another former Roman road, from east to west. These Roman roads connected Exeter to Lincoln and St Albans and Cirencester respectively. The M4 and A40 cross the area from east to west linking it to major cities and communities, as do the M40 in the north-east near Banbury and the Oxford to Worcester and London to Bristol, Bath and South Wales railway lines.

The Cotswolds area is famed for its building stone, used extensively within the NCA but also much further afield, for example in Oxford and London.

The Cotswolds today

The Cotswolds area extends from Mells in Somerset to Brackley in Northamptonshire. It is a distinctive landscape of national significance; 65 per cent of the area is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The Cotswolds are part of the oolitic limestone outcrop that stretches from Dorset to Lincolnshire. The steep western scarp is the edge of the harder, more resistant limestone lying on top of predominantly softer mudstones which form the landscape to the west of the rolling high wold and the long, descending eastern dip slope. All this creates a rich and diverse landscape, unified by the underlying geology. A visual harmony is derived from the scale and simplicity of the landform and from the widespread use of the distinctive oolitic limestone as a building material.

The north-west-facing scarp slope is dissected by enclosed valleys and dominates the vales of Evesham, Gloucester and Berkeley. The crest of the scarp is punctuated by many notable features such as beech hangers and iron-age hill forts, and structures such as Broadway Tower and the Tyndale monument. Ancient woodlands are a key component of the landscape and often crown the upper slopes of the scarp and enclose the valley sides. The beech woods of the scarp are of particular importance for their nature conservation interest. Cotswold Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation (SAC) has been designated for its botanical interest and at 585 ha forms the core of a much larger woodland area. Pasture occupies the lower slopes and valley floors, often divided by overgrown hedgerows and fingers of woodland. Commons, such as Cleeve and Selsley, are found along the middle section of the scarp between Winchcombe and Dursley. Rodborough Common is designated an SAC for its semi-natural dry grasslands.

The unimproved grasslands contain nationally rare species, including pasqueflower and Cotswold pennycress, alongside typical calcicole species such as musk orchid, rock rose, bastard toadflax and thyme and associated butterflies such as the Duke of Burgundy butterfly and the chalkhill blue, Adonis blue, large blue and small blue butterflies.

The large-scale, open landscape of the high wold is characterised by expansive views and arable cultivation, intersected by limestone walls and hedgerows, particularly in the valleys and alongside quiet lanes. There are lush, narrow, sheltered valleys including dry valley systems which contrast with the wider high wold. Woodlands on the high wold are characteristically of small to moderate size and geometric, many comprising plantations, copses and shelterbelts. Only small hamlets and isolated farmsteads are found on this higher ground.

The lowlands of the eastern side include rivers, such as the Windrush and Evenlode, flowing eastwards in broad shallow valleys. These rivers provide the headwater tributaries of the Thames, many flowing through the Cotswold Water Park and contributing to its network of wetlands. Flood plain meadows, including remnant watermeadows, are found in this landscape. The rivers of the south and west of the area flow into the River Avon and then into the Severn Estuary.

Humans have long influenced the landscape. Visible ancient examples include Neolithic chambered tombs, as at Belas Knap, stone circles such as the Rollright Stones, and hill forts such as Sodbury Camp. Former Roman roads, in particular the Fosse Way and Akeman Street, cross and run the length of the Cotswolds, and there are well-preserved Roman villa sites at North Leigh and Chedworth. Field patterns are influenced by the former medieval open field system overlain by subsequent piecemeal and planned enclosure which resulted in many of the drystone walls and hedgerows seen in the landscape today. Evidence of industry can be seen in the former cloth mills along the Stroud valleys, the canals, principally the Kennet and Avon canal, and railways – both disused and operational – which bisect the area. In addition to those archaeological monuments surviving as earthworks or structures, there are also many thousands of buried archaeological sites reflecting the intensity of past human use of this landscape.

A walk or ride through the arable landscape reveals the surprising richness of wildlife, particularly farmland birds such as skylark, yellowhammer and corn bunting, and arable plants including shepherd’s needle. Many roadside verges are important for their grassland species including, in spring, white and cream of cow parsley, followed by the blue of meadow cranesbill, the purples of scabious and, around Bath, the rare Bath asparagus. The Bath and Bradford-on-Avon Bats SAC supports 15 per cent of the UK’s greater horseshoe bat population along with Bechstein’s bat and the lesser horseshoe bat. Woodchester Park is particularly notable for bats and historic designed landscape.

The local Cotswold stone is a unifying element of the landscape, used in buildings, drystone walls, cottages, grand houses and churches, all built in a locally distinctive style. The high quality of the domestic architecture is particularly notable, with steep roofs of graded limestone slates, parapeted gables with finials, stone mullions, rectangular dripstones and dormer windows, and four-centred arches over doorways. Refinement, simple elegance and quality pervade. The colour of the stone varies across the Cotswolds due to variation in the iron content, ranging from the brown ironstones of the north-east, through to the grey, almost white stone of Northleach and Painswick, to the honeycoloured stone found in and around Bath.

The principal Cotswold towns and cities – Stroud, Cirencester and Bath – lie on the edge of the area. Bath is internationally known and designated as a WHS for its Roman and Georgian architecture. The scarp and dip slope landscape around Bath is less pronounced, breaking up into a series of hills and valleys often referred to as combes. The smaller market towns and villages tend to lie in the valley bottoms, occasionally along the valley sides and at the scarp foot on springlines. Stow-on-the-Wold is an exception as a hill top town. Settlement patterns vary from compact to dispersed and ribbon forms, with some lying round a central green. Away from these sheltered town and villages, which are usually never far from water, the higher ground is often sparsely populated, with only a few hamlets and isolated farmsteads. On the open, high wold and dip slope the oldest and most recent roads sweep across the landscape in almost straight lines; however, along the valleys the typical road is a winding lane linking villages. The combination of high-quality landscape, tranquillity and an excellent rights of way footpath network has made the Cotswolds a popular destination for quiet outdoor recreation.

The landscape through time

The whole area is underlain by the Lias Group, formed in a muddy sea, which is exposed in the valleys, except where there have been extensive landslips. The oolitic limestones were deposited between 100 and 170 million years ago when the area was under a clear warm tropical sea. Two types dominate: the Great and the Inferior Oolites. Both are prized building materials. The Inferior Oolite forms the scarp, while the younger Great Oolite forms most of the high wold and dip slope. The strata dip gently, with younger rocks found in the south-eastern extremities of the area, and Oxford Clay and Cornbrash found around the northeastern edges. The geology is particularly important for the study of stratigraphy, or rock layers, and William Smith, the ‘father of English geology’, made some of his key observations of stratigraphy in the Cotswolds. The area is also important for palaeontology, the study of fossils and fossil environments, and the first scientifically described dinosaur fossils were discovered here at Stonesfield.

Virtually every settlement within the area has an associated, now nearly always disused, quarry. Thousands of delves – shallow pits from which stone has been taken for walls, infilling, slates, sheds and other small-scale operations – are found across the area, alongside larger worked quarries, some active for many years. Stone has remained an important building material and places like Taynton Limestone Quarry near Burford are listed in Domesday Book; the last extraction of stone took place in 1939. Stone from Taynton was used by Sir Christopher Wren in London for churches and St Paul’s Cathedral.

There is evidence of over 6,000 years of human occupation and land use. Although Mesolithic remains have been found, archaeological evidence suggests that the large-scale clearance of the lime-dominated woodland and settlement did not begin until the Neolithic. Visible remains can still be found from this period in the form of causewayed enclosures and long barrows such as at Belas Knap. Other notable features of the prehistoric period include bronze-age stone circles or henges, such as the Rollright Stones near Chipping Norton, and iron-age hill forts, with 17 strategically located along the crest of the scarp.

Roman influences are prominent in the landscape; Roman roads, settlements and the remains of villas can be found throughout the area. Cotswold stone has been used for construction since at least the Neolithic, but it was the Romans who developed the materials for buildings, both for the grand civic centres of Bath, Gloucester and Cirencester and for villas, villages and town houses. Roman roads have had a lasting influence on the area, and of particular note is the Fosse Way which runs the full length of the Cotswolds. The Romans are thought to have introduced the long wool breed of sheep which was the ancestor of the Cotswold sheep, commonly known as the Cotswold Lion.

Saxon settlement saw the establishment of much of the human infrastructure of the area; most place names in the Cotswolds are of Saxon origin. W.G. Hoskins considered ‘the landscape of the Cotswold uplands … was even in Saxon times much as we know it today’. The presence of water was an important factor, and many villages were established along the springlines on both scarp and dip slopes. The principal land uses have long been agriculture, particularly sheep grazing. In the north-east, where the soil was overlain with poor-draining clay, woodland cover was preserved as the royal hunting forest of Wychwood near Charlbury.

Reference to Domesday Survey of 1086 shows that many present-day villages were already in existence at that time, surrounded by very large open fields subdivided into strips. Much of the land was owned by extensive ecclesiastical and feudal estates, some of these based outside the Cotswolds. There were few large woods in the Cotswolds except those clinging to the steep uncultivated slopes along the escarpment and within valleys. Irregular and species-rich hedgerows along the slopes, and often well-preserved ridge and furrow patterns, are evidence of the clearing of land for agriculture (often promoted by these landowners). Market centres such as Stow, Moreton-in- Marsh, Chipping Campden and Northleach developed in the same period, many being planned as new settlements. Some settlements developed around areas of common land.

Population decline, beginning in the mid-14th century and resulting from climate change, poor harvests and plague (including the Black Death of 1348), precipitated significant change in the Cotswolds. Sheep farming became a major occupation, especially on the established ecclesiastical estates, and wool and cloth production became a mainstay. Wool market towns such as Stow-on-the-Wold and the medieval planned towns of Northleach and Chipping Campden grew and prospered on the back of the wealth generated by the wool trade. One of the longest worked groups of medieval quarries came from this period of growth and stretched from Painswick to Nailsworth to meet the need for building stone for the rapid growth in market towns. Cloth was mechanically finished in fulling mills powered by the fast-flowing streams in the area and new mills were established at Wickwar, Dursley, Wotton-under-Edge and Stroud, also generating growth and prosperity.

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries and on the back of the wealth generated by wool production, many fine country houses and parks were established including Blenheim Palace, now a WHS, Compton Wynyates, Sherborne Park, Dyrham Park, Badminton and Cirencester Park. This wealth also contributed to the development of a distinct architectural tradition within settlements and across the rural landscape. The 16th-century expansion of wool production led to enclosure across the Cotswolds to create sheepwalks and folding, a process which often went hand-in-hand with the shrinkage of settlements and the establishment of fine houses with small estates.

Further enclosure of farmland and downland for cropping and pasture followed, mostly on a piecemeal basis, in tandem with the creation of new farmsteads and the building of large barns but principally driven by Parliamentary enclosure in the late 18th century and early 19th century (concentrated in the central and eastern wolds). Thousands of miles of drystone walls and hedgerows appeared in the landscape along with avenues, shelterbelts, plantations and turnpike roads. The newly enclosed fields became famous for the quality of their barley, used for malting and livestock feed. Dairy farming and cheese-making also rose in prominence, although wool production remained important.

Mixed fortunes shaped the Cotswolds until the Second World War. The cloth industry expanded from the 17th to 19th centuries in the valleys around Dursley, Stroud, Chalford and Painswick. Taking advantage of local water power and deposits of fuller’s earth, large multi-storey stone mill buildings were erected to card, spin, weave and finish the cloth, such as Bliss Mill at Chipping Norton. Communities expanded with modest terraced houses for workers built along hillsides, while mill owners erected fashionable grand houses.

By 1850 the wool industry was in decline as the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions shifted competitive advantage to other parts of the country, and increasingly to mills in the north of England. The area also saw lower levels of investment in agriculture than did other chalk and limestone areas of England. In the late 19th century, leading figures in the Arts and Crafts Movement were attracted to the Cotswolds: William Morris purchased Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire and C.R. Ashbee established the Guild of Handicrafts in Chipping Campden. The Arts and Crafts Movement left its most profound mark on the landscape in the restoration of the area’s churches and in its distinct ‘Cotswold style’ of domestic architecture which inspired new buildings by national figures such as Detmar Blow and Guy Dawber and also fostered local talent such as Ernest Gimson and Norman Jewson. By the 1930s, places such as Bourton-on-the-Water had become popular with tourists, bringing much needed income, while a heightened awareness of the beauty of the area shaped new developments, such as the facing in local stone of the RAF bases of Hullavington and Little Rissington.

During the Second World War, the area was strategically important. Many wartime airfields were created by clearing the landscape of nearly all natural and manmade features; while some, like Kemble, remain in use, many more have been given back to farming, though they are still evident in the form of very large, featureless fields. After the war farms prospered anew as homeproduced meat and cereals were in demand and new techniques and heavy mechanisation meant that profitable farming once again became possible. This brought more changes to the landscape with the construction of large agricultural sheds to house machinery, the widening of field entrances and the removal of field boundaries. Mechanised road traffic and improvements to the road network opened up the area to tourism and commuting. The M5 running parallel to the scarp, the M4 cutting across the southern part of the area, and the M40 touching the north-eastern edge of the NCA, provided fast links to London, Bristol, Birmingham and the West Midlands.

Early in the 20th century J.B. Priestley identified this area as one that ‘needed protection for the good of future generations’. Its value was recognised more formally in the wartime and post-war reports on landscape protection. In 1966 part of the area was designated as an AONB, and this was extended in 1990 to cover 65 per cent of the NCA. With such a large area of the NCA designated as a protected landscape there has been relatively little change in the last decade. The name ‘Cotswolds’ is a recognisable brand nationally and internationally as representing the quintessential English landscape. This reputation is leading to visitor pressure in some places such as Bourton-onthe- Water and Castle Coombe.