Siteline | A Ramble Through the English Countryside

After my husband, Adam, and I bought our house, we took down the “Cotswold Cottage” signs because we thought the name was overly twee. Having now been to the Cotswolds, I’m even more glad we did so: ours can’t possibly compare. The houses in the Cotswolds and surrounding areas have oodles more character (ours is stucco!) and are impeccably well-kept. Everything is so tasteful.

We had cherrypicked the loveliest towns to visit, and en route between them, we’d occasionally see a newer development that tried to pay homage to the classic country architecture and only suffered by comparison. Out-and-out clunkers, like this doozy in Somerset, were rare.

We flew Delta to London via Salt Lake City, where the airport is in the middle of an expansion/renovation; the new terminal was nice, and the flight to London was only eight and a half hours. Normally, we’d have done the sensible thing and recovered from the jet lag in London, but limited availability at the country hotels meant we had to hop right in the rental car and go. (Delta business class passengers get access to the Virgin arrivals lounge, including the highly recommended showers.)

Driving on the left takes some getting used to, more so after an overnight flight, but having successfully navigated Japan, we were unperturbed by doing it in England. A far more terrifying factor: the narrow roads, two-way but only wide enough for one car and often with a 60 m.p.h. speed limit. Every now and then, a sign warned of “oncoming vehicles in middle of road.” No kidding. The road below is an especially egregious example.

I coped with the stress by focusing on the charming turns of phrase—”soft verges,” “severe bends,” etc.—spotted on signs, and marveling at place names in the region. Favorites included Tiddleywink, Kent’s Bottom, The Folly, The Shoe, Marston Bigot, Wookey Hole, Ready Token, Lusty Gardens…. But nothing topped this.

Our first stop was The Rectory Hotel in the village of Crudwell. “The property is early 18th century with later alterations and additions,” says the website. “Originally the rectory to All Saints’ Church and designed with a large number of bedrooms to accommodate the rector’s 14 children.” Busy man, the rector.

We booked the Biggest Room—that’s its name—which was spacious indeed, with welcome touches like robust water volume in the shower and a French press (with milk in a hallway fridge). I can live without turndown service, if I must, but is a towel bar too much to ask? A larger concern is that the house felt a bit wobbly, shaking whenever someone above us trodded heavily. (N.B. We always pay our own way, and no one knew I’d be writing about the trip.)

We ate one night at the hotel, which was nothing to write home about, and the other at The Potting Shed, the related pub down the street, where the standout dish was the twice-baked cheese soufflé.

The hotel’s wi-fi was weak, at least until Adam fixed the router, so we took the password’s advice to goforawalkinstead. This trip was more for Adam than for me, another way of saying that all I knew about the area was what I’ve absorbed from Merchant Ivory films. I only had a vague knowledge of the public rights of way all over the English countryside. It’s heaven! The scenery, per se, isn’t all that dramatic, but the experience is marvelous. AllTrails really helps with keeping on track; nevertheless, pay attention or you might miss the path continuing through a hole in a hedge.

We had to use a plant-identifier app to determine that this is a walnut tree.

Giant woodpigeons can be heard cooing everywhere.

The jet lag sent me out on another walk at dawn, which I only mention because the light was magical.

At the top of Adam’s list of towns worth visiting was Bibury. I can’t say whether the shops and restaurants are interesting, because we went before anything except a bakery was open, but the buildings are sublime. The seating along a bend in the river is part of The Swan hotel, and too bougie for my taste (and also like something out of The Prisoner), but even I have to admit that it’s quite pretty, if you don’t mind the gawping of passersby like us on the road.

Carry-on regulations prohibited me from buying preserves at the honor-system stand outside someone else’s Cotswolds cottage.

Many of the iconic British phone booths have been repurposed to house defibrillators.

We also enjoyed Upper and Lower Slaughter, two villages connected by footpaths. Trust that there are many appealing stone buildings in both.

I could’ve skipped Bourton-on-the-Water, though. The canals are charming, but it was overrun with visitors.

That said, in the men’s room at a pub there, I learned of a product called BlokIt, “the world’s first surface coating specifically designed to reduce the use of cocaine and other powdered recreational drugs.” Doing lines off a bathroom sink? Disgusting. Use a key like everyone else.

The larger city of Cirencester was a pleasant surprise—not the Corinium Museum, which I forgot about immediately after visiting (and that probably says more about me than the museum), but for the architecture.

Adam’s favorite town was Castle Combe, where “no new houses have been built in the historic centre of the village since about 1600” (Wikipedia). I should point out that parking in most of these places is near impossible, but they tend to have paid lots nearby.

We laughed when a group of Italians asked to take a photo with these guys. What could be more British than a bunch of lads with high-and-tight haircuts trying to sell beer outside a church at 10 a.m.?

A more traditional attraction: a National Trust manor house like the 17th-century Dyrham Park.

Espaliered Worcester pears!

We learned a new phrase: “desire lines”are unofficial trails created by human or animal traffic. It would also make an excellent name for your sophomore album.

The interiors are predictably impressive.

I was especially taken by a trompe l’oeil moment, the leather wallcovering, and a globe with a big void for the western half of North America. That’s more leather—this time gilded—on the wall behind the globe.

That people behaved monstrously in the past seems obvious—and heaven knows they keep on doing it—and I can understand the need to warn people about an unpleasant sight. Offering an alternative route seems excessive, though. Maybe the house could just provide blinders.

The village of Lacock, almost entirely owned by the National Trust, looks like something out of Harry Potter—and sure enough, one of the films was shot there, along with Downtown Abbey, the best adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and many other productions.

We were going to skip nearby Lacock Abbey, because one historical house a day really is enough. The rain insisted otherwise, and I’m glad we bothered. Much is made of how it was “once home to William Henry Fox Talbot, inventor of the photographic negative,” but the cloister court and hallways are what I’ll remember most.

And I am obsessed with this asymmetrical archway.

Adam and I had long romanticized the idea of staying above a good restaurant, the way one hears about in Europe, so were excited to visit The Three Horseshoes in Batcombe, in the county of Somerset. Next time, I think we’ll try it in France rather than a pub in England, because we could hear the patrons below us yapping away whenever they stepped outside for a smoke. (There’s no A/C, so the windows have to be open.) And if we had paid more attention while booking, we might have noticed that our room had a tub with a handheld shower, but no partition, resulting in a lot of awkward positions. These are legit complaints, and yet I still enjoyed the place—the village is tiny and you feel immersed in it, especially when kids on horseback trot by.

It’s definitely fancy country, judging from the neighbor’s Ferrari, Aston Martin, and vintage Land Rover. I could totally see myself living in the house in the second photo….

The Three Horseshoes is owned by chef Margot Henderson, so we had high hopes for the food. The menu was everything I want to eat, and we did not order lightly. The standout, however, was the excellent sourdough from Landrace Bakery.

After that meal we were ready for a hike, so we went over to Cheddar Gorge. The town of Cheddar is a mass-market tourist trap—two fudge shops and a year-round Christmas shop are a clue—but the scenery is worthwhile. And you have to admire the feral sheep.

Beware the flatulent dog.

I was jazzed to go to The Newt for lunch, because we had had a fantastic stay at Babylonstoren, its sister property in South Africa. You are required to become a member (starting at £80 per year), however, which I assume is intended to deter travelers. What a drag. We continued on to the Hauser & Wirth gallery complex, where I find the business model as interesting, if not more so, than the art. The Piet Oudolf gardens are spectacular; that blob structure is the Radić Pavilion by architect Smiljan Radić.

While I don’t see myself moving to the English countryside, I would be up for another visit—mainly for the walking. The last thing we did there was take a long morning amble through many different properties. Having to pack dew-soaked boots was totally worth it…

…particularly after a post-walk breakfast of expertly poached eggs on Landrace toast.

P.S. Adam likes to say that I don’t care for London, which isn’t accurate—I simply thrill to it less than other comparable cities. And we had a hard entry, arriving on a balmy Saturday afternoon at the end of summer, when the streets were jammed with people, including all around the Covent Garden Hotel. The West End location is the only thing I don’t love about the hotel. Otherwise, it’s perfect: awesomely quiet; in pristine condition, even after nearly 30 years; HVAC that doesn’t turn off in the middle of the night; and because there’s no coffee maker in the room, you just call down and request they bring up some flat whites…. (The second photo is of the communal drawing room and library on the second floor.)

We treated London as a weekend break from travel-travel, running errands like changing old pound notes at the post office and stocking up on Nurofen Plus for hangovers back home. We did manage a couple of cultural activities: the Churchill War Rooms, where I quickly got the point (and claustrophobic), and the Serpentine Galleries, where the highlight of a Giuseppe Penone retrospective was a room with walls of fragrant laurel leaves.

While I’m beginning to look forward to the day when I no longer need to be on Instagram, it came in handy when friends from New York who were visiting London saw that we were in the city, too. There’s something magical about meeting up far from home, the way we did at Westerns Laundry, where Adam and I had last been seven (!) years ago. We also had an excellent udon lunch at Koya Soho.

What excites me most about any city is exploring new neighborhoods, and mass transit is so easy now, thanks to Google Maps detailing every step and subway systems that let you pay by tapping your phone when you enter and leave. (Transport for London keeps track of your activity and charges you accordingly, capping the amount you pay.) The Design District in Greenwich is both new to us and new in general. Who knew you can climb over the O2 arena or that London has a sightseeing gondola? Instead, we watched a performance of “Ripple” by TeaTime Company, part of the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival: “A giant metal spiral becomes an acrobatic playground as circus, dance and physics come together in a performance exploring the consequences of our actions.”

And we ended up in another virgin-territory neighborhood, Haggerston, for dinner at Planque. Feeling antsy beforehand, I browsed Google Maps to see if there might be an interesting bar nearby, and you can understand how I was curious about A Bar With Shapes for a Name. It’s inspired by Bauhaus and serious about mixology. We found it a little ridiculous and totally memorable, which is an ideal combination when you’re on vacation. The staff pretended that we weren’t decades older than everyone else there, insisting (“We’re open till 4 a.m.!”) that we come back after dinner. We were still laughing about it when we walked out the door.