E was on holiday for a few days last week so we had an afternoon out at Stow-on-the-Wold in the Cotswolds.
With hindsight visiting on a sunny August day in the school holidays was probably not the best of ideas as the town was very busy and there was a 20 minute queue to even get into the town.
Timothy in the traffic jam feeling rather bored and asking "Are we there yet?"!
Nearly there!
A rather lovely new Cotswold stone wall.
Unsurprisingly there was no room to park in the town square so we went back to leave the car in the free car park at Tesco and walked.
This fountain was presented to the town's residents in 1896 by Piers Thursby.
The town has a lot of lovely independent shops.
This building houses the library and information centre.
The town was heaving with people and combined with cars parked all round the square made getting photographs something of a challenge!
There are a lot of pubs and tearooms.
The Cotswold Cheese Company - purchases were made :)
This is allegedly England's oldest inn built c947AD
We bought some chips from here for a rather unhealthy but tasty lunch!
Sadly, I didn't get chance to look round this interesting looking bookshop.
Time for a quick drink.
Near this cross Sir Jacob Astley surrendered to Parliamentary forces following defeat at The Battle of Stow on 21st March, 1646. 200 Royalists were slaughtered in the square and 1500 held prisoner in the church overnight. This was the last battle of the first Civil War and resulted in the end of the Royalist occupation of Oxford.
It was impossible to get a photo of the cross without people sitting on it!
It was a pity this shop was shut as the Oak Man in the photo above may well have been coming home with me.
More purchases were made here!
The church of St Edward dates back to the 11th century. I didn't go inside this time but if you want to see the church interior please see here as I did look round on my last visit. The church is about half way down the post. For some unknown reason I called the town Stow in the Wold and not Stow on the Wold!!
These are bale tombs which date from the time when individuals became wealthy due to the wool trade. The tombs have a semi-circular ribbed shape on top of the chest tomb. This may represent bales of wool or possibly the rippled shape of a pall which was suspended over a semi circular metal frame over the body during medieval funeral services.
This is the wonderful door at the church said to have inspired J R R Tolkien especially in relation to the Gates of Moria.
This churchyard was rather neat and manicured :(
Purchases for D as he was stuck at home working!
I do like the Cotswolds but the one huge disdvantage is that, like Stratford upon Avon, it is always busy.
All photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera.
