Last Wednesday E and I had another day out. We picked a town that we hadn't visited before in the North Cotswolds. Thankfully we didn't get lost as the route is quite straightforward M42, A429 and B4035 and additionally E has a satellite navigation on her phone!
Chipping Campden, a small market town, has buildings in that lovely honey coloured Cotswold stone, that date from the 14th to 17th centuries. In the Middle Ages the town was a rich wool trading centre and the church of St James is one of the Cotswold "wool churches". In the early 20th century the town was a centre for the Cotswolds Arts and Craft Movement.
There were lots of interesting independent shops.
The rather impressive Market Hall was built in 1627 by Sir Baptist Hicks later Baron Hicks of Ilmington and Viscount Compton. It was bought from the Noel family for the National Trust in 1942 and has since been re-roofed in a traditional way.
Sorry about the parked cars in the the photos - often a problem in many picturesque towns and villages although as I had arrived by car I can really hardly complain!
The doorway to the Old Grammar School is interesting. Inscribed are the words "Scholae grammatica 1487 JF" and also some interesting symbols. I have tried to find out more information on the symbols without much success apart from the idea that they may be related to people connected with the school or with learning.
I fell in love with this bee carved above the door.
You can see the church of St James in the distance.
A 1690 sundial spotted by my daughter.
E has a Fiat 500 so she was thrilled to spot this old one.
As the pubs and tearooms all looked rather expensive, after I had had a quick look round St James (I will do a separate post on the church), we went in search of somewhere to eat.
With the help of E checking out local pubs and using the satellite navigation on her phone we drove past several villages - in Ebrington was a pub which was apparently The Times UK Number 1 village pub some years ago but we surmised this might be as expensive as those in the town and so continued on our way. We made a detour to a pub called The Plough but it was closed and then arrived in Ilmington
at The Howard Arms which had stopped serving food! a real shame as on the specials board was a cauliflower soup which sounded rather tasty!
In the end we drove to Shipston on Stour which we have visited before and which has a lot of tearooms and pubs and ordered some food at
The George (by now it was late afternoon!!)
A bee on my half pint beer glass :) and I had
Tomato Soup which really was very good.
All photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera
