Cotswolds/Oxfordshire question

Old Oct 2nd, 2011, 01:34 PM
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Cotswolds/Oxfordshire question

Hello All,

I am just starting to plan a late spring 2012 trip to England, the purpose of the trip is just to relax and enjoy but we prefer one location to use as a base. Toward that end, is Whitney a convenient place to tour the Cotswolds from? We will have a car and plan to spend six nights at the Old Swan & Minster Inn. Beyond the immediate communities such as Woodstock we would specifically like to visit Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick (town & castle) is Whitney a realistic base for exploring the aforementioned destinations as day trips? Many thanks for your help here.
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Old Oct 2nd, 2011, 02:14 PM
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That area is a great place to base. When I read as far as "Whitney" I was a bit bemused. But then I got to the Old Swan & Minster Mill bit. It isn't in Whitney. It is in Minster Lovell, a tiny village midway between Whitney and Burford.

Burford is one of my favorite places to base for touring the Cotswolds, and is good for everything you want to see and more.
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Old Oct 2nd, 2011, 02:27 PM
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Perfect! Thanks Janisj, I feel so much better about the location and appreciate your response. We are creatures of habit and prefer to 'nest' in one place and day trip as compared to packing and unpacking every couple of nights. Now all of the fun research starts - I will be sure to visit some of your prior posts. Again, thank you.
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Old Oct 2nd, 2011, 03:04 PM
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I stayed at the Old Swan several years ago and enjoyed it. Minster Lovell is a wonderful place. I also like Burford and if I could live anywhere in England, I think I'd choose Burford.
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Old Oct 2nd, 2011, 09:27 PM
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Witney (PLEASE, all of you, note the spelling), though handsome and exceptionally useful as a market town, is almost entirely devoid of tolerable hotels, except for a couple of charmfree chain places in its outskirts. It can also be surprisingly iffy after dark, when the local tradition of local youths trying it on with squaddies out on the piss occasionally spills over to affect ordinary civilians. It's close to a gastronomic desert, with edible food at night only really in the Feathers.

Logistically, the towns and villages round Witney (like Minster Lovell) are terrific places to base yourself (exactly an hour's drive from any Heathrow carpark, for example). My experience of the food in the one Minster Lovell place are grisly, though it's recently been bought by a group with ambitions, so the food's probably now pricier and a bit less grisly.

If you don't fancy having to drive off (and therefore back again after a few glasses) somewhere else for supper, you really need to stay somewhere larger than ML. Burford and Woodstock are just as handy, but have a range of restaurants and pubs with reasonable food.

Virtually any town in the Cotswolds is fine as a touring base, though.
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Old Oct 2nd, 2011, 11:01 PM
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I HATE it when I do that . . . Of course it is Witney (I even have two Witney blankets in my linen closet). In my (very weak) defense, at the same time I was posting there was a TV promo running about some lame new sitcom called 'Whitney' and it must have crept in there . . .
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Old Oct 4th, 2011, 03:39 PM
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Many thanks to all for your sagacious advice about Minster Lovell near Witney. Per Flanneruks suggestion I will look into nearby towns for dinner options (I welcome any suggestions - we like everything)and reserve either a driver for nearby dining & imbibing or simply suppress our appetite for serious imbibing until we arrive in London.again, my sincere thanks to all for your time and assistance.

Sidebar: My spell check wants to add an 'h' to Witney...
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Old Oct 4th, 2011, 09:52 PM
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Are set on the Old Swan? If not, there are some very nice properties in Burford (the Lamb Inn and Bay Tree are two and there are others) where you could have a lovely stay and be in walking distance of lots of pubs and restaurants - plus the restaurants in the hotels themselves.
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Old Oct 4th, 2011, 10:06 PM
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That sounds like a lot of fun--we're actually planning our honeymoon for June 2012 and we're going to be spending a few nights in Bourton-on-the-Water.

Also... "It can also be surprisingly iffy after dark, when the local tradition of local youths trying it on with squaddies out on the piss occasionally spills over to affect ordinary civilians."

...I just read that sentence and had no idea what they were talking about. I actually had to "urban dictionary" it, and I'm 23! Apparently I don't have a very good British slang vocabulary.
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Old Oct 4th, 2011, 11:36 PM
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Let me try to deconstruct Flanner's sentence, and other posters can correct me if I have missed any nuance.

"Iffy" means uncertain. You could observe bad or threatening behaviour, boisterous activity, noise. This is very unlikely to be directed at you, but it could make you feel uncomfortable.

"Squaddies" are new army recruits

"Trying it on" in this context means challenging someone to a fight, either verbal or physical. The squaddies will probably be "trying it on" with the local girls, but they will be looking for something more consensual. The local boys will not like this.

"out on the piss" - spending the evening drinking heavily and generally messing about.

I don't know the local situation in Witney, but this sort of thing is common in towns with a big military or naval presence and always has been. I grew up in Portsmouth in the 50s and 60s and it was the same. Young men with raging hormones who are old enough to buy alcohol and have been shouted at and given boring jobs to do have a tendency to let off steam.

Is it different where you come from?
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Old Oct 5th, 2011, 06:24 AM
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"I grew up in Portsmouth in the 50s and 60s and it was the same."

Snap, perhaps we frequented the same punch-ups.
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Old Oct 5th, 2011, 06:58 AM
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I think Willit has the same pedigree.

I observed the bed behaviour mostly from the top deck of a bus (Southdown or Corporation), and recall all the foreign sailors in their different uniforms. If there was trouble, it was mostly dealt with by the naval police, who could get away with being more rigorous.

When the Soviet fleet paid a visit in the fifties, and Commander Crabbe met his sad fate, the sailors had free use of the buses, and there were signs in Russian at the city boundary telling them they could travel no further. My older sister came home with some strange Russian cigarettes, which only had tobacco in half their length.

One bus route to school took me past Aggie Weston's and then down Queen Street, the red light area.
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