Cotswolds Sunday in November

Old Nov 9th, 2013, 02:29 AM
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Cotswolds Sunday in November

Next weekend we are staying in the Cotswolds. Sunday is a special day and also the day we need to travel home by car to Anglesey.
In the event that the weather is wet ( and therefore we can't walk) what is open to visit?
Essentially talking about stately homes /castles. We would hope to meet with family staying in Clanfield to do this but they will have to return to London that night ( although their journey will be shorter than ours so we'll have to leave first).
Have visited Blenheim the last time we stayed and have also been to Stratford and Warwick Castle.
Good food is a given and I'm not after a recommendation for anywhere to eat.
Essentially I want to do something I'll remember .
Any hints please?
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Old Nov 9th, 2013, 03:22 AM
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"Essentially talking about stately homes /castles. "

The really memorable one is Chastleton. But if you're looking for a variant on Downton, it's not for you.

I've never really seen the point of Sudely, though if you navigate your way to the Roman villa in its grounds it gets a bit of a point.

The garden at Rousham is triff, though as damp as any other garden if it's raining

Most decent houses in the Cotswolds are still in private or institutional hands, and don't need visitors to survive. Given your premise, I'd go for painted medieval churches, superchurches like Tewkesbury/Burford or Roman villas rather than economically unsustainable bling recently owned by feckless toffs.

Which Chastleton absolutely isn't

OR:

Chastleton plus the adjacent Daylesford deli (Britain's poshest shop, showing up F&M and Harrods as the preposterous trophies for foreign zillionaires they are) plus the amazing wall painting at Oddington. No version of Tudor history has ever explained how the locals got away with a 30 foot high pisstake of the Lord of their Manor: Cardinal Wolsey.

All just off the A44
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Old Nov 9th, 2013, 03:32 AM
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"Essentially talking about stately homes /castles. "

The really memorable one is Chastleton. But if you're looking for a variant on Downton, it's not for you.

I've never really seen the point of Sudely, though if you navigate your way to the Roman villa in its grounds it gets a bit of a point.

The garden at Rousham is triff, though as damp as any other garden if it's raining

Most decent houses in the Cotswolds are still in private or institutional hands, and don't need visitors to survive. Given your premise, I'd go for painted medieval churches, superchurches like Tewkesbury/Burford or Roman villas rather than economically unsustainable bling recently owned by feckless toffs.

Which Chastleton absolutely isn't

OR:

Chastleton plus the adjacent Daylesford deli (Britain's poshest shop, showing up F&M and Harrods as the preposterous trophies for foreign zillionaires they are) plus the amazing wall painting at Oddington. No version of Tudor history has ever explained how the locals got away with a 30 foot high pisstake of the Lord of their Manor: Cardinal Wolsey.

All just off the A44
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Old Nov 9th, 2013, 06:54 AM
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One of my very favorites is Snowshill Manor near Broadway although, as flanneruk also notes, not one of the "Downton Abbey" variety. A much more intimate place.
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/snowshill-manor/

The website points out that it's open for winter weekends by tour only which you can book here:
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/snow...and-do/events/
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Old Nov 9th, 2013, 09:13 AM
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Berkeley Castle will be open on Sunday - and it's a proper castle too with loads of history, therefore impressive and memorable.

OK, so it is not strictly Cotswolds, being off the edge of the escarpment and down in the Severn Vale, but it's close enough to junctions 13 and 14 of the M5 giving easy access to the motorway networks for return journeys to London and Anglesey.
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Old Nov 9th, 2013, 11:11 AM
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I was going to second julia_t's recommendation of Berkeley Castle, but according to their website, they are closed for the winter.
http://www.berkeley-castle.com/index.php

Lee Ann
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Old Nov 10th, 2013, 10:27 AM
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Lots of interesting ideas here but not many of them are open unfortunately. Maybe we'll have to return in the Summer.
I'll let you know how we fare.
Many thanks
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Old Nov 10th, 2013, 02:44 PM
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For someone who lived in the Cotswolds in the 1950's, the words "Sunday in November" bring back a great many memories, some not fond. Church. A slice off the joint, potatoes, Brussels sprouts. Papers and a doze in front of the wireless. Petrol rationed after Suez, sugar until late 1954. No central heat. Bubble and squeak for supper perhaps, More wireless. Dinky toys on the floor. Bank the coal fire and go up to the unheated bedroom. Sunday, bloody Sunday.

Don't bother if it is raining.
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Old Nov 10th, 2013, 10:58 PM
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...but for those of us who live in the modern world (and didn't live in the 15% of households with a car 60 years ago, but did live in the 85% of the population who got off their backsides and onto the buses that weren't affected by the 1956 petrol rationing), "Sunday in November" means a time it's warm enough for a proper walk in glorious countryside, the trees are still in full leaf, but of a trillion different shades of autumn, and Englishpeople are still feckful enough to remember there's no such thing as bad weather: just inappropriate clothing.

True, wimps do dissolve with a few drops of rain, and the feckless rich inevitably migrate somewhere more amenable.

Those of us who choose to live here, of course, are of sterner stuff. Who on earth heats bedrooms?
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