Exploring Hazleton | Hidden Gems In The Cotswolds

Hi there and welcome to the Cotswold Explorer. I'm Robin Shatbrough and we're exploring the wonderful region of the Cotswolds in South West England. We've decided to revisit the centre of the region and find some hidden gems. Places that are not quite so famous but still just as beautiful. And today you find Ross, Gizmo and me in a little village called Hazelton. We're having a really nice time here in this part of the world. These villages feel almost completely hidden. We seem to have gone back centuries but I'm always, even now after all these years, I'm still surprised. That's Gizmo saying hello by the way. I'm still surprised by how amazingly remote and quiet some places are when they are merely just a few hundred yards from the A40. We're going to show you around a very original, certainly on the outside, Norman church and have a look at this lovely village that sits on both sides of a very steep valley. Come with us. It's always fun to discover a village that covers both sides of a valley, creating lovely views across to their neighbours from the windows of every cottage in the settlement. Hazelton, nowadays spelt with a Z but in Rudder's 18th century history of Gloucestershire spelt with an S, is one such village. Rudder describes the parish as high on the Cotswold with a fine, healthy air, destitute of trees and so exposed to the winds from every quarter, vegetation is not a little retarded. Just as he did about the parish of Salperton and near neighbour, he sings the praises of the locals who were, in the 1700s, working hard to make the best of and to improve the countryside in which they lived and worked. Looking around in Hazleton now, there is no doubt they succeeded brilliantly. Trees protect the settlement and there's no sense of wild exposure. That, and the fact that it's near impossible to find anywhere to leave a visiting car, makes this a highly sought after place to live. Perhaps not surprisingly, the house we did manage to stop outside for a few minutes, and which was for sale, is priced just shy of a million pounds for a four-bed cottage. The village is mentioned in the Doomsday Book, William the Conqueror's famous audit of his conquests in 1086, as belonging to Sigard de Sioch, who was from Bethune in northern France. Eventually the manor was gifted to Winchcombe Abbey. After the dissolution of the monasteries, it went to the Culpeper family, although part of it seems to have been acquired by the rapacious Tracy family of Sewdley, whose descendants are still present and important in the region. The parish of Hazleton used to include a small hamlet of Yamworth, where we will go next week, but meanwhile we will appreciate the amazing view of the Church of St Andrew, sitting just above the building that used to be its parsonage, seen from the opposite side of the Russe's new camera toys that he can use to film from within a bouncy car, despite being tiny in size, have the ability to iron out the bumps. Gosh, this technology has come a long way in the 10 years we've been filming in the Gottswaz. The little Norman church, with a longer than usual chancel, has some medieval additions and alterations, but outside it still retains a strong Norman vibe. The south porch was added around the 14th century, but the original inner door is very definitely Norman, with chevroned arch and scalloped capitals on the doorjamb pillars. The plain tympanum above it somehow feels to me as if it ought to have a carved decoration within it. I suppose it's possible that once it did. The perpendicular west tower was largely rebuilt in the late 17th century, with buttresses to hold it up second time round, and castellations at the top. Inside, the church was seriously restored by a man called James Medland in the middle of the 19th century. He provided most of the internal furnishings, including the rather splendid round stone pulpit. The nice octagonal font, probably 13th century, was reused on a 19th century base. And the stained glass is all 19th century, except for the northernmost window in the north aisle, which was commissioned from Hardman & Co in 1966. This was the glass company founded by John Hardman in 1838, and which didn't close until 2008. Out in the churchyard, there's an interesting ancient medieval stone coffin, which, I have to admit, had I been 20 years younger, I would have found irresistible to try out. There are also a couple of interesting chest tombs, the first to John Lord the Younger, dated 1644 and well decorated, and one with an enormously heavy capping stone, probably 16th or 17th century, with a cross carved in the top. The beauty of this place has been appreciated since well before the church or any of these cottages were built. In 1979 and over the next couple of years, two long barrows were excavated just northwest of the village, and carbon dating showed them to be constructed 2,950 years before Christ. Sadly, nothing is visible of these burial places any longer, but those ancient peoples certainly had good taste. I hope you've enjoyed our little trip around Hazleton. It's an extraordinary place. It's incredibly remote. It's not the sort of place you'll visit, because there's nowhere to stop. There's nowhere to park your car. It's on very steep slopes, either side of a valley, as you've seen. It's extraordinary to me that within just... I can hear the A40 road at the top of the hill there, and yet it feels as if nobody's been here for centuries. It's in fantastically good nick. Obviously, the village is much loved. The church has been slightly over-restored, but that's not the current owner's fault. We've enjoyed ourselves very much. Don't forget, if you want to see our stuff without advertisements, it is possible these days. We have a Patreon channel now, which has got a whole mass of our stuff, which you can see entirely ad-free for a tiny little contribution of a few quid a month. We'd love it if you were to subscribe. It all goes to help us, but it does help sometimes not to have the advertisements interrupting your show. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel, and we will see you very soon somewhere else in the Cotswolds.