Hidden Gems in the Cotswolds (Episode 1): Ablington, Eastleach & Windrush and Broad Campden

And welcome to our brand new series, Hidden Gems in the Cotswolds. Such was the success of our Exploring the Cotswolds series that we decided to look at the region from a slightly different perspective. We're going to seek out small villages, lesser-known buildings, sometimes even small artefacts. Come with us and let's go and find some wonderful Cotswold gems. This first episode starts in the little village of Ablington. Then we go to East Leech, then to Windrush, Shipton-under-Witchwood, and finally to the wonderful thatched village of Broad Camden. Come with us. I have read to you before in these films a short extract from J. Arthur Gibbs' classic book, A Cotswold Village, published in the 1880s, which described his first view of the village of Ablington and the manor house he was to call home for the rest of his short life. His book has been a familiar in my life for years without, for some inexplicable reason, even bothering to find out where it was of which he wrote. Expectations were therefore running pretty high as we approached the place, so hauntingly described in his pages. Evans, our more familiar travelling companion, wrote of this village, The devious lane which takes us down the valley of the Colne Calls for wary steering and a moderate pace. This, however, need not be regretted, for this is not a journey to be taken by express. It is this solitary valley that has found its Václés Séka, or sacred poet, in Arthur Gibbs, and my pen shall refrain from lingering over the scenes which he has depicted with such intimate sympathy. Following the windings of the stream, you come to Ablington and its Tudor manor house which Gibbs loved so well, and where some of the happiest years of his all-too-brief life were spent. I must say that the extraordinary village doesn't disappoint. It sits in a steep valley fork, the houses, almost without exception, hanging on the slopes with lovely views at the opposite bank. Gibbs wrote of his first impressions, The cottages, like the manor house and farm buildings, are all built of the native stone, and all are gabled and picturesque. Indeed, save for a few new cottages, most of the dwellings appear to be two or three hundred years old. In this small hamlet I noticed that there were no less than three huge barns. At first I thought they were churches, so magnificent were their proportions, and so delicate and interesting their architecture. One of these barns is four hundred years old. He writes that in this village, in spite of bad times, some of the old customs have not been allowed to pass away, and right merry is the harvest home, and Christmastide is kept in real English fashion, nor do the mummers forget to go their nightly rounds with their strange tale of St George and the Dragon. Visiting at the beginning of the 21st century, however, I was struck, more than I have been to date in our travels, by the intrusion of modern life. We're standing in front of the amazing Tudor manor house, in which Arthur Gibbs lived when he was writing this wonderful book, A Cotswold Village, a book that has been part of my life for so long. Written just above the door, on the little plaque above the door that you can see behind me, Evans tells us about this, is an inscription which reads, Plead thou my case, O Lord, by John Cotswold, Anno Domini, 1590. John Cotswold was the man who built this house, and he lived in it for most of his life. Gibbs describes village life here in the most wonderfully quiet and sort of rather idyllic way. Things are slightly different now, I fear, but it is a beautiful house. Interestingly, just above the door inside this house, the great solid oak front door, is another legend which reads, Porta Patens Esto, Nulli Claudaris Onesto, which means, if by classical education is anything to go by, this door is never locked to honest men. That may have been the case from 1590 until the 1890s when Gibbs arrived, but these days it is quite clearly not. The walls and gates give the firm impression that the hordes are battering at the door and the house is in full defence mode. Gibbs has some interesting 19th century views on that. He writes, It is a sad thing when the big house is empty. It is to be feared that rich tenants of country houses and the like are apt to take a somewhat limited view of their duty towards their poorer neighbours. To be sure, the good ladies at the great house are invariably ministering angels to the poor in time of sickness, but even in these democratic days there is still too great a gulf fixed between all classes. It's just a little frightening how 130 years on these words ring so true. Perhaps it's a little rich for one who spends his time encouraging the whole world to visit this amazing countryside to complain of the inevitable results of frustrated privacy and rumbling resentment from the locals. In many ways it lives up to its extraordinary reputation. Just don't even think of bringing coaches or caravans down these little lanes. By the very nature of our search for gems, we are zigzagging around the region a bit. From lovely Ablington we travel towards East Leech Turville and East Leech Martin. Just a few miles north of Lechlade-on-Thames, they are the perfect place to begin. Few places in the region are more beautiful. They're so beautiful these places. No great historical event gives these villages their place in the history of this country. It's true, but nonetheless every village, however small and however picturesque, will have a story to tell if you look for it. In this case we have two little villages of East Leech Martin and East Leech Turville right opposite one another across this lovely little river, the Leech, one of the most beautiful of all the Cotswold rivers flowing eastwards. As you can see, classic shallow water, very, very clear. Should be full of trout, probably is occasionally. Should be very close to the May flight season. Maybe they'll start rising. It's peaceful, it's wonderful. We're going to show you around. I'm almost tempted to say stay away from this place. I feel almost like an intruder myself. It is so peaceful. But as you'll see a little later on there's a rather wonderful looking pub and hotel on the top of the hill who I'm sure would be pleased for your visit. Come with me. The river Leech, which forms the boundary between the two villages of East Leech Turville and East Leech Martin, is fed by several springs further up the valley. The water is gin clear, shallow and constant and it made the perfect environment in the past for the farming of watercress. There's no sign of commercial watercress farming these days except for the occasional remains of a structure in the water designed to control the flow. I'm sure, however, that if you were a forager you might expect to find watercress growing wild even today. The two parishes were separate until 1935 when they were amalgamated, which explains why there are two lovely parish churches within 180 yards of each other. These days the smaller church of St Andrew in East Leech Turville is the place of worship for both communities. The church is perhaps the most interesting of the two. Norman in origin, it's full of architectural and decorative features. The walls are lime washed and it was completely re-roofed in 1905-6 with local elm wood. The pulpit is early 19th century and made up of Jacobean arched panels and the lectern with a wooden shaft carved with vine trails is said to have come from Tewkesbury Abbey. The larger church of St Michael and St Martin is cared for by the There are fragments of medieval glass in the windows and amongst other treasures the lectern was made in about 1930 from Elizabethan table legs or bedposts perhaps. It remains a consecrated church but is rarely used for services now except for weddings, christenings and funerals. It remains open however for the huge pleasure of any passing traveller. Founded in 1969, the Church's Conservation Trust looks after over 350 churches around the country. Known as redundant churches, the numbers of wonderful religious buildings all over England at risk of neglect and even collapse grow every year and the Trust is one of the many organisations that endeavour to protect and look after our incredible heritage. The Church of St Michael and St Martin is an excellent example of the huge efforts they go to to maintain these churches on our behalf. I think this ancient cross here will have been taller than this of course and slightly more elaborate when it was. It's medieval and I think it's another of those extraordinary crosses that mark the resting points for religious processions in medieval times. We first came across one in Yarnton several years ago when we first started this journey through the Cotswolds and we've found many since and I think this is another one of them found in East Leish Martin. It's an ancient and wonderful little structure. Connecting the two villages for many centuries is an old clapper bridge. This is a type of footbridge found all over this country, usually where there was a ford in the river for vehicles and ridden horses and a dry bridge was required for people and pack horses on a leading rein. It's made of enormous slabs of stone, stretched between stone pillars and is as firm and strong today as it has ever been. The nearby road bridge was built later in the early 19th century to take carriages and eventually cars and lorries but this clapper bridge is still seen by the locals as the connection between the two communities. It's named Keeble Bridge after the family of John Keeble who was curate here in 1815. His family had been lords of the manor since the 16th century. Near Keeble Bridge is a heavy gothic wellhead built in 1884 which will have provided the village with a convenient water source and on this hot day provided Widget with a means of cooling down. We're headed for the village windrush named after the river on which it sits. We find ourselves in a village that has seems entirely to have avoided the dead hand of the developer. This place looks as though it it's the same as it has been for the last several hundred years. The beautiful Norman church behind me which we'll visit in a second, the streets, the little bits of green covered in cow slips and buttercups and forget-me-nots thriving in the spring sunshine. There is nothing that can be more wonderful. Let me show you round. Windrush lies about halfway between Northleach and Burford on the south side of the river from which it derives its name. The village sits on an outcrop of what's called inferior oolite stone but around it are several abandoned great oolite quarries from which no doubt most of the houses and cottages were built. The village green is an unenclosed triangle of grass filled at this time of the year as I've already said with wild flowers and insects and surrounded by 17th and 18th century houses. The Norman church dedicated to Saint Peter was built in the mid-12th century and whilst it was once a chapel of the church of Great Barrington by the end of the 12th century a perpetual vicarage had been established. The south doorway arch has a double set of beak heads, nearly all of them with almond shaped eyes. The beak head is a Norman decoration found in many of the churches around here. This is a particularly great example. The chancel arch, certainly original 12th century work, has ornate twisted jam shafts leaning conspicuously outwards. The font is the usual 15th century style, octagonal with an ornate stem and the pulpit is jacobean of carved wood and I think particularly lovely. Outside the church is a collection of extremely fine chest and pedestal tombs. Everywhere are signs of the importance of the wool trade in the area. On the tombs, on the ceiling of the church itself and on many of the gravestones images of sheep are all over the place. It's also apparent however that quite a bit of the land around here was used to grow grain. The beautiful mill on the river just north of the village is one of several that used to be in medieval times. Windrush was a major provider of flour to the local area. There's obviously been some expansion of Windrush over the centuries but it's marked how well this has been done, disturbing the feel and atmosphere of the place as little as possible. Our valued travel companion Herbert Evans laments the intrusion of red brick and tiles into the Cotswolds in general, already apparent in 1905 when he roamed the area. But that intrusion pales into insignificance when compared to what was done to the area in the subsequent hundred years. Not fortunately in this gem of a place, the village of Windrush. About a mile southwest of the village is Windrush Camp, an iron age hill fort, roughly circular and enclosing about three acres. The bank survives to a height of about six or seven feet. The valley is crisscrossed with public footpaths and of all the Cotswold valleys it is the one I've walked the most. There are many sources to guide you on where to go but coming away from the valley today Ross and I are thinking it might be useful for us to provide some walking guidance of our own. We'll be working on it. Leaving Windrush and following the river all the way to Burford, we cross the medieval bridge at the bottom of Burford High Street and fork right towards Chipping Norton on our way to Shipton-under-Witchwood. It's an interesting place this because it's quite close to where I live and I drive through here on a very regular basis. This main road in between Ross and me at the moment is a very busy road and I will be stopping once in a while to let the cars go by but behind me is one of the most spectacular Jacobean houses in the whole county. It's worth coming to this village just to see that. It's beautiful absolutely but behind Ross going in that direction is a wonderful avenue of trees and we're going to walk through it because we are promised canals, castating waters, all kinds of wonders. We're going to walk up it. Come with us. The beginnings of this extraordinary avenue of a hundred lime trees are shrouded in a bit of mystery. The house, Shipton Court, is as I've already said a spectacular Jacobean building built for the Lacey family in about 1603 and there is some hint in the records that the avenue existed, although it would have been embryonic, in 1617. But come 1773 the trees were so spectacular that Sir John Read, who by then owned the place, left an instruction in his will that the avenue should not be cut down. The order seems to have been aimed at his wife who survived him, although why he should have thought she would want to cut it down we don't really know. Of the trees that exist today some are over 250 years old but it's probable that none of the original trees are here. It's a bit like the road sweeper's broom. It's done me proud this broom never let me down. I've had it all my working life and it's only had 15 new heads and 30 new handles. The wild garden proper with its lakes and waterfalls was probably laid out in 1860 as a pleasure garden for the residents and visitors to the Shipton Court. The spectacular cedar of Lebanon, probably as much as 300 years old, was certainly a centrepiece of the design. It was always added to over the years and we know that just after the great war of 1914-18 more woodland was added to the north of the park. But as recently as 2010 the garden was acquired by a local charity and a huge amount of restoration work was undertaken by local volunteers. The round pond, teeming with very friendly ducks, is actually elliptical. The brilliant designers made it that way so that if you stand on the bridge it looks round. Gardens of this time were often full of optical illusions. Just above the round pond is the original fish pond for the estate, now with a hidden feel surrounded with willows. The stream flows down from one pond to the next and then via rushing cascades into a canal and onwards into the river Evenload. I'm told by the local village website that the park is officially closed to any but residents at the moment during this pandemic but since we're so close to an end to restrictions I'm sure they won't mind my telling you their story and encouraging you to visit where appropriate. This really is a hidden gem of the Cotswolds. It's extremely difficult to park nearby so it's tricky to get to but worth the trouble if you fancy a walk and a picnic. It's maintained entirely by volunteers so if you would like to support them by becoming a member or simply by making a donation you'll find a link on our website. I'm really beginning to enjoy these gem pieces we're doing about the Cotswolds. We came across this extraordinary park originally designed of course purely for the pleasure of the owners of the wonderful Jacobean mansion at Shipton Court. Now it belongs to the community. People can walk here, walk their dogs, exercise and drink in the beauty of this extraordinary woodland with these glorious water features and ducks, my new friends, standing behind me. It's been just amazing and I don't think we'd ever have discovered this unless we'd been doing exactly what we're doing. In order to get to our next gem from Shipton there is no way of avoiding a fantastic drive through the lanes of the Evenlode Valley. Not that you would want to of course. Take the B4450 towards Stow-on-the-Wold via the magnificent hamlet of Bruern Abbey, a gem for another time. Take the A424 from Stow towards Evesham and watch for a turning right down the A4081 to Chipping Camden. We're heading for the village of Broad Camden, one mile southeast of Camden itself. This little hamlet sits on the Monarch's Way, the famous walking route taken by King Charles and his followers after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. He and his troop came through this little hamlet on their way to the Mendips, the south coast and finally along the south downs to Shoreham where he made his escape to France. So close is Broad Camden to the larger settlement of Chipping Camden that it's hardly a surprise that their histories are very interlinked. Almost 120 years ago Evans wrote with unbounded enthusiasm of the arrival in Chipping Camden of the Guild of Handicraft under the inspiration and direction of Mr C.R. Ashby. Ashby moved the town in 1902 bringing an extremely strong creative and conservatory influence. Its immediate constructive effect was apparent a mere two years later when Evans came through and he mentions that Ashby had extended his reach to Broad Camden. He'd set about restoring a dilapidated ecclesiastical building, long since deconsecrated, into a home for Ananda Kumaraswamy, the single-eased scholar who took over the Essex House Press in 1908. And in 1911 Ashby moved in himself for about eight years. The building is the one we now see hiding demurely behind the neatly clipped yew hedges just south of the church. North of said church is a friend's meeting house. The two bays of housing were purchased by the in 1663. They added a bay in 1677 when the whole building was re-roofed and probably remodelled. The original internal layout survives, though only part of the screen to the two-storey southern vestibule and the elders' bench against the north wall are in situ. One of the things very noticeable in Broad Camden is that any new building development in the village has been done with the minimum of disruption to the feel and style of the place. The argument will continue for as long as humans exist as to whether it's better to build in the vernacular or if it's incumbent on modern designers to make a 21st century stamp on these places. I think my feeling is that if building developers were able or inclined to employ truly brilliant architects then perhaps the 21st century intrusion would go down in history as a high point in local development. But whilst they employ jobbing architects whose maximum skill is making buildings stand up for long enough to get them sold, I'm pretty sure the vernacular, at least from the point of view of using local materials, is preferable. Evans wrote, Let the men of Camden take timely warning and see to it that their priceless heritage is not lost to them forever. In Mr Ashby they have a fellow townsman whose sympathies are entirely with the architectural traditions of the place and under his advice neither will any outrageous novelty intrude itself nor will any pains be spared to preserve everything worthy of preservation. Ashby may have fended off what I've previously referred to as the dead hand of the developer for a good proportion of the early 20th century but I'm afraid the above paragraph has an extremely hollow and depressing ring about it if you look at it from the perspective of a 21st century visitor. I fear the Cotswolds in 2021 are awash with outrageous novelties and there is no sign of a let up anytime soon. This lovely village of broad Camden however stands as a fine example of a settlement that has grown organically and sensitively. Visit with a delicious pint of beer and a meal at the local pub in mind, wander the lanes that drop steeply into the valley floor taking you back 50 years every 50 paces you travel and drink in the smells and sounds of these watery hills. It's all pretty special. We do hope you've enjoyed our little spin around this lovely little village very very close to Chipping Camden and only about a mile outside really and with major connections throughout its history but it is one of those rare occasions when you get the feeling that mankind and nature are working really hand in hand. It's just beautiful. The cottages rise from the ground made from the very stone on which they sit. It's just lovely. Well I hope you've enjoyed our episode of hidden gems in the Cotswolds. We've had a lovely time making it. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel. You can find us on all the other platforms and go to our website thecotswoldexplorer.co.uk where you'll find everything we do.