A Yarn of William Shakespeare

For the last time... Sunday 5 June 1994. This entry finishes the tale of our long weekend in the Cotswolds. If you've been following this holiday you will know that after mixed weather, the day we have to go home is the most gorgeous British summer's day and we have stopped off here and there on our way home. We are heading north and out of the Cotswolds now.

The yarn of the title comes from this - the ancient yarn market at Chipping Campden. It was a market, meeting place, somewhere dry to shelter from rain and ancient pestilence and generally a spot where local elders could gather and moan about teenagers and the lack of a decent day care centre...

One chap in 1437 sat there for a full week thinking it was a bus shelter, before someone told him buses hadn't been invented yet. Once they had been invented three turned up at once...

We had dinner in a pub and then went into the local museum which was so crammed full of things that the presentation didn't make sense! But who cares? It was like rummaging through a junk shop without a single uninteresting thing to find. It was brill!

The old projectors from the local cinema, probably closed down in the 1930s at the end of the silent era, were resplendent in one room with a pile of clutter around them, only some of which was relevant to the world of film. A huge balloon of the wicker basket type was propped up in one room, as apparently a local, before the days of flight, decided man could and should fly and built this contraption to prove it.

I can't believe I've never made it back there, the place was a goldmine of treasure! We carried on north and into Warwickshire, coming to this delightful cottage, familiar through countless Christmas biscuit and chocolate selection box lids and jigsaws.

Quite how William Shakespeare ever managed to find a bit of peace to woo Anne Hathaway amidst all those hordes of Japanese and American tourists flocking all over the gardens I'll never know.

"Sweet William, let us take to the sun lounger and ... lounge..."
"Hark! What is this I see before me? A camera lens? Oy! Piss off!!!" It couldn't have been easy...

A couple of miles further and we are in the centre of Stratford-upon-Avon - always a good trivia question to trap the unwary: what's the name of the river that runs through Stratford-upon-Avon? Almost as good as: what's the name of the ship in Mutiny on the Bounty?

Anyway, this is Shakespeare's birthplace. In the house, rather than on the pavement we hope. You can imagine him as a boy staring out of the bedroom window and saying "Those patterned bricks in the road look nice now, but I bet it won't be long before they're tripping people up..."

And so, in a blaze of wordly thought, a tumultuous crescendo of prose and textly passage (Shakespeare wasn't above making up words so why shouldn't I?), we end this tale of Cotswoldian (see!!!) wanderings and head off back up to Blackpool. Forsooth... and Roger, Sooth's lodger...

Return to England's Cotswolds Holiday 1994 Index Page

Broadway Sights

Sunday 5 June 1994. We're back in the Cotswolds again. However, this series is coming to an end with the next entry so I'll have to think of something else to blog about. Unless I go away again...

So we've left the deserted village of Snowhills and we are now at Broadway. Our trusty Fiesta is parked on the main street and all we can get for free is half an hour and time is marching on, so that's all we're staying!

Broadway is a town of stone buildings, many of which could have been the inspiration for one of Fran's Liliput Lane models. There are some large hotels, at least one of which look as though you'd need a second mortgage to stay! There's thatched cottages and shops a-plenty and certainly enough to fill half an hour. Is that all we've got? Right, let's get moving then!

In any quaint and ancient town you should expect to see shops selling quaint and ancient things and Broadway is no exception. There are antiques shops in abundance and I can quite happily spend hours in them (as long as they are not just about furniture and pottery).

A row of three bright red telephone boxes caught my eye as they were starting to disappear around this time to be replaced with the bland glass kiosks familiar today.

And there was this unusual bicycle combination with a push cart in front and trailer behind, each with insulated tubs for carrying and selling ice cream cones.

We bought one each and just had time to wolf them down before our half hour was up and I had to move the car. So a bit of a whistle-stop tour of Broadway but a nice place to look at as I'm sure you'll agree!

Return to England's Cotswolds Holiday 1994 Index Page

Snowhills in the Cotswolds

Sunday 5 June 1994. Snowhills. We reached it just before lunchtime and I had a wander around the village, taking photos whilst Fran and Gill went into a craft fair in the Church Hall.

It was a little eerie actually. Either the entire population were in the craft fair, or they were peering anxiously through their curtains as strangers rode into town... Perhaps they were eyeing us up and wondering what the chances of sudden violence were as though it were the wild frontier town of the Cotswolds. Or perhaps not.

More likely they were indoors watching the footie and it probably passed their notice that I was wandering around with a camera, looking in vain for a shop to buy a drink...

"Here, Henry - there's a chap passed out from heat exhaustion in the middle of the street!""
"Anyone we know?"
"No..."
"Bloody tourists..."

This looked a bit like the hill in the Hovis advert except that everyone knows that that's er.. somewhere else. I'd be able to look it up if I wanted, but I need to set my readers a challenge every now and then because you're getting far too complacent! So comments folks - where's the hill in the Hovis advert?

"Eeh,mi Dad allus used ter leave it on t'step ter cool off. All brown an' steamin' it were..."
Dirty divil...!"

There's a Snowhills Manor. We didn't go in, but when we showed the photos to the family later my auntie said "Ooh, I had to go out of there, it had a right spooky, oppressive atmosphere."

Like the rest of this deserted village then. It's probably fine when the people actually come out. But by the time Fran and Gill came out of the craft fair I was prepared for what they actually said: "That was weird - there was no one in there, just an honesty box and loads of In Memoriam cards on sale..."

Onwards - to the lights, theatres, glitz and showbiz razzamataz - to Broadway! The locals, safe behind their net curtains, looked out at the deserted streets... "Have they gone, Henry?"

Return to England's Cotswolds Holiday 1994 Index Page

Slaughter In The Cotswolds

Sunday 5 June 1994. After a weekend in the Cotswolds, we are now on our way home, having decided to take it at a slow pace and stop at places that take our fancy.

This is the two Slaughters, Upper Slaughter on the far side of the river and Lower Slaughter on the side from where the photograph was taken. Whether there actually was some ancient battle and uncountable mayhem on this site is debateable and history hasn't set it down in writing but verbal tradition persists that Mavis at 23 Riverside in Lower Slaughter came over all ferocious when Betty at 42 Foxglove Close in Upper Slaughter borrowed a cup of sugar once without returning the cup.

For days the river banks were lined with furious women dressed in battle pinnies and brandishing egg whisks and toasting forks before a skirmish broke out in the middle of the southernmost bridge.

People whisper that the bridge was held with single-handed determination by Elsie Winterthrop who swung her skillet with wild abandon until a pair of white knee-length knickers were flown from the roof of Mayoress Beatrice Bagthorpe's. Ever since that fateful day, when the river turned colour because Rose Daley had a dolly blue washing stick in the pocket of her pinny when she was knocked into the river by Elsie's skillet, the village kids have re-enacted the battle, every mid-summer, skimming stones at one another up and down the river whilst wearing a saucepan on their heads.

And whilst all of that may well be a load of rubbish (though if you get skilleted, don't say I didn't warn you) it has made this entry a little longer and allowed me to show more photos!

The water mill in Upper Slaughter has a water wheel, gently turning and seemingly perpetually in shadow - I have never been when the sun was shining from a direction to light up the wheel and bring it out of shadow. If you can't make it out in the photo, you'll just have to take my word for it - there is a water wheel there.

So that's filled a short period of time whilst we walked down one path, across a bridge and back along the other side of the river, taking time to go into the mill shop and back swiftly out again when I realised how small it was and I had a camera bag over my shoulder which might have done as much damage as Elsie's skillet...

I did also have a spot of doodling with the pencil!

Return to England's Cotswolds Holiday 1994 Index Page

Bourton-On-The-Water

Sunday 5 June 1994. Typical isn't it? Our last day - the day on which we had to drive back and the weather was beautiful! Still, we were only a few hours from home and there was most of the day to potter about. Bourton on the Water is a beautiful place. Peaceful and lazy.

And that just about describes us that morning too... We rose and sort of fell into clothes and reluctantly threw all the other clothes into the suitcase in preparation for going back home. We had breakfast, staring bleary eyed out of the window at this gorgeous scene and decided it would be a slow meander homewards with lots of stopping off at places.

First, however, we would have a walk along the River Windrush that runs under these wonderful little bridges. A cat was stalking the ducks in the picture above. Muscles bunched, he rushed out of cover...and of course made a hash of it and the ducks took to the safety of the water leaving the cat to sit and wash its leg to cover its embarrassment.

Service in the tea rooms shown above left much to be desired. They were busy, but only because people were forced to spend far longer than necessary in there waiting to be served and - incredibly - waiting to pay!

We left, eventually, reflecting that any Blackpool cafe who left people standing at the till so long would lose their payment in no time at all! However if you visit don't let this put you off because this was, after all, 15 years ago at time of writing and they will have either got better - or gone bust and someone else will have taken it over!

At the end of the village is a motor museum that is well worth a look. Even the kiddies will enjoy it because it is the home of Brum the little car from the children's TV show. Brum can be found amongst the exhibits which are many. I would quite happily go back for another look.

So we reach the end of the village and the end of our brief weekend stay. But there's plenty to see on our way home and the next place on our list is a place of Slaughter!!!

Return to England's Cotswolds Holiday 1994 Index Page

Northleach Museum of Mechanical Music

Saturday 4 June 1994. It was still raining as we returned towards Bourton-On-The-Water and our hotel from Cheltenham and Gloucester, but before we arrived back at the hotel we had noticed another mention of a museum on the map.

At the village of Northleach we found Keith Harding's World of Mechanical Music. If ever you find yourself with a couple of hours to spare, pay it a visit. The small room was packed with people. The guide (who it turned out was Keith Harding himself) welcomed us and then asked an unexpected question.

"Before we start, would you like to see the collection of clocks?" Somewhat bemused we glanced around at each other. Someone nodded and it became infectious. Yes we would like to see the clocks! "Come through, it may be a little squashed!" he apologised, leading us from the museum room into the hallway of his living quarters. A small collection of clocks stood in the hallway - every size of clock you could imagine, from a mantleshelf clock to one that belonged in a clock tower (albeit fitted with a more modest face!)

He proceeded to talk about the clocks, about how, when and where they were made, the type of people who would have had a clock like that and the way in which they were wound. In the middle of his talk a small terrier came down the stairs and launched into a frenzy of friendly leg licking. We patted it dutifully and then with enthusiasm, for as his tale of the clocks went on we became fascinated until he finished with the church clock, demonstrating how the clock in the Tower of Westminster was wound each day.

And then, spellbound we were led back into the museum where he played a piece of music on each of the instruments in the place - polyphons, beautiful music boxes with automated figures and birds, player pianos, wax cylinder phonographs (Come Into The Garden, Maude) and finally the horn gramophone (Teddy Bears' Picnic).

The horn (he explained) was made of papier mache, and all horned gramophones had a horn no bigger than (now how large was it? No matter!). He smiled at us. "Can anyone think why?" he asked gently. There was silence. His smile became broader. "Come now," he chided, "no one with a practical mind?" The answer hit me and I laughed out loud. "So they could get through the door!" I said and his smile became even broader, nodding his delight that he hadn't had to say it himself.

We left the museum, agreeing with the other visitors how pleasant a place it was and what a good time we had had. The guide had worked his magic so well we were all friends by now, even without knowing names! We decided there and then that we would revisit the museum some day.

We headed on up to Bourton-on-the-Water and booked in at a small guest house. Looking through the trees over the River Windrush with its wonderful little bridges, you see the group of buildings where our hotel was.

Apparently on the Friday night someone tried to ram-raid the chemists shop underneath our hotel room in a car. He forgot about the concrete flower pots (trenches more like!) and only succeeded in wrecking the car and had fled, leaving blood in the car. We slept blissfully through it all! Serves the dipstick right, I hope it hurt!

Return to England's Cotswolds Holiday 1994 Index Page

Rainy Day in Cheltenham

Saturday 4 June 1994. A disappointment - it threw it down raining nearly all day. The Cotswolds are lovely on a nice sunny day but there's not a lot of shelter apart from tea shops and cafes so with a view to making the best of it, we went to Cheltenham.

Walking about in a city gets you just as wet as walking about in a small village, so we looked for somewhere to go and I snatched photos as we flitted from car park to shopping centre!

I saw a sign for a record fair and left the ladies to visit the shopping centre whilst I went for a mooch round the singles and LPs (remember them?) in a hall.

The record fair whittled away a happy hour or more. I even made a purchase or two. One of them was Curved Air, being the second album from the band whose name was the title of the album. I used to see them live every time they came to Manchester when I was a teenager - brilliant band! A few singles were bought as well - destined for the jukebox!

Then back to the car and a drip over the map and we decided to drive a bit more and visit Gloucester.

We parked near the canal. This is the National Waterways Museum. But that wasn't what we had come to see. We went into the Robert Opie Museum of Packaging and wallowed in a rosy-tinted nostalgia of boxes of Omo and Acdo, packets of Spangles and all sorts of things that get thrown away in their thousands every day. Brilliant! The Gloucester museum is now closed but a lot of the collection is on display in Notting Hill in London. It was well worth seeing.

It's still raining. But I've spotted another museum reference on the map back in the Cotswolds so we'll go to check that out on our way back to Bourton-On-The-Water!

Return to England's Cotswolds Holiday 1994 Index Page

The Rollright Stones

Friday 3 June 1994. We left Stow-On-The-Wold having booked a guest house in nearby Bourton-On-The-Water and decided that instead of going straight there we would do a bit of a detour and try to find The Rollright Stones.

I've got a bit of a thing for stone circles and henges and hillforts and I'd never been to the Rollrights. I had an Ordnance Survey map and by following that we easily found this. The King Stone, part of the Rollright group. No chunk of hard granite like you find in Cornwall but a more porous type of rock, weathered and eaten by acids in rain. Apparently though, the strange shape of this rock has more to do with passing tradesmen battering chunks off it to use as lucky charms against the evil of the Devil.

We spotted what we thought were the Rollrights on the other side of the road and on reaching the road, turned to our left until we reached a well-formed track that took us to the next group. This group was obviously too small to be the Rollrights and in any case reminded me more of a cromlech or tomb. And so it turned out to be when I researched it much later.

These are The Whispering Knights, so called because the way that the five stones lean in towards one another suggest a whispered consipracy, the knights plotting against their king. They were probably covered by earth originally, one of several tumuli in the area. Why was this one uncovered? It had to be the tomb of someone important - lesser folk didn't move people to hump gigantic stones to build a large monument to them. Perhaps it was simple grave robbery or attempted grave robbery that caused the destruction of the earthworks.

So where were the Rollrights themselves? On the Rollright Stones website there is a simple map showing how we turned the wrong way from the King Stone. It looks obvious on the map but the main circle is screened by trees and it simply wasn't visible to us. The scale of the Ordnance Survey map we had with us didn't help as the entire group was just shown under one symbol.

In the event, we decided they must be further down the path from the Whispering Knights and after a long walk we had to admit defeat and head back to the car. We wouldn't find the Rollright Stones and take any photographs until Thursday 30 May 1998, almost four years later.

Return to England's Cotswolds Holiday 1994 Index Page

Stow-On-The-Wold

It's 3 June 1994 and the trip starts, as any self-respecting trip to the Cotswolds starts, at Stow-On-The-Wold.

Lots of villages in the Cotswolds have a string of hyphenated words as a name. Apart from Stow-On-The-Wold, there's Moreton-On-The-Marsh, Foot-In-The-Cowplat, Nettle-Sting-Behind-The-Knee and of course, Bourton-On-The-Water. At least one of those actually exists and we'll end up there later because Stow-On-The-Wold has no Guest-Houses-With-Vacancies...

So, the Cotswolds then... An area of outstanding beauty and lots of quaint little villages whose buildings are almost all unique rather than a collection of the same design. Lots of them have given firms of modellers and ceramics like Lilliput Lane a rich source for their catalogue and Miss Franny has at least half of the Cotswolds, modelled in miniature, taking up 53 display cabinets, friends' lofts and stuck upside down on the ceiling as we got ever more desperate for space to put them!

However, back then in 1994 she didn't have any and holidays and shopping trips were spent trying to drag her away from shop window displays, bottom lip stuck out and an accusatory finger pointing at the examples in the shop with the words "Want to start collecting them!" ringing in my ears. Yes dear, of course... wouldn't you rather have another guitar? No? Why not try one to make sure?

Ah thank you lads - see I knew if I waited long enough you'd get fed up of making V-signs... The market cross was minus its cross from the top of the post that weekend. Must have been being cleaned or something...

For some reason or other, both Miss Franny and daughter Gill were reluctant to enter into the spirit of things by trying out the stocks properly...

Return to England's Cotswolds Holiday 1994 Index Page