River Windrush in Bourton-on-the-Water. Photo / Mark Meredith
River Windrush in Bourton-on-the-Water. Photo / Mark Meredith
The English countryside is at its most outstanding in the warmth of the sun, finds Mark Meredith.
It was with considerable excitement that I found myself leaving Auckland's winter to attend an English country wedding in midsummer in the Cotswolds.
Two weeks in June, the hottest since 1995, when the thermometer at Heathrow was stuck around 35C; that was something I didn't remember from my former homeland (apart from a couple of very brief visits, 21 years had elapsed since our family had left Blighty in search of a new life). But what a time to visit, because when summer strikes in England can there be anywhere more wonderful?
The countryside is in bloom, the trees are full and magnificent. The tapestry of fields is filled with seas of swaying wheat, yellow rapeseed and dazzling poppies, red gashes flayed across the gentle green slopes of England's rural idyll.
But, most importantly, everyone seems happy. Really happy, basking in parks, village greens and beer gardens, with wide smiles and cheery good mornings. That's what summer does in England; it lifts the national mood when it's doing what summer should. There's nowhere like it.
Designated the largest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in England and Wales, the Cotswolds are the epitome of a chocolate-box, picture-postcard stereotype of English countryside.
Cotswolds in summer. Photo / Mark Meredith
The aged, honey-hued towns and villages of Cotswold stone, which date from Anglo-Saxon times, come with names that could have been imagined in a J.K. Rowling novel: The Slaughters, Owlpen, Ampney Crucis, Stow-on-the-Wold, Dorn, The Duntisbournes, The Eastleaches, Perrotts Brook, Chipping Sodbury, Moreton-in-Marsh, and Wyck Rissington, where my parents' home backed on to a 13th century church in which the composer Gustav Holst was once the organist.
It is the Cotswold stone that gives the area its unique mellowness and ability to blend so harmoniously with the landscape. In the villages, towns and drystone walls that criss-cross the hills and dales in the north of the Cotswolds, the stone is honey-brown, while in the south near Bath it's creamy.
But always the stone seems to glow, as JB Priestly wrote: "The truth is that it has no colour that can be described. Even when the sun is obscured and the light is cold, these walls are still faintly warm and luminous, as if they knew the trick of keeping the lost sunlight of centuries glimmering about them."
Tourism is both boon and a curse to the Cotswolds, attracting 38 million visitors a year worth $2 billion to the Cotswold economy, as well as a big dose of traffic gridlock in some areas. The region, more than 2000sq km, covers Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and parts of Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire. It's not surprising it attracts the vast numbers it does, such is its impossible beauty and the unique identity and history to be found within each area.
Getting in the car and exploring the labyrinthine lanes and byways, discovering medieval villages, ancient churches and irresistible country pubs is a delightful adventure.
If it's foot power you prefer, there are more than 4800km of footpaths, bridleways and ancient woodlands to explore in the Cotswolds. It's also home to a fantastic variety of gardens and arboretums. And when you need refreshment, you'll find a bewildering array of gastro pubs, cafes and restaurants serving delicious local produce and mighty-fine ales.
The Cotswolds and New Zealand have something in common — sheep. 'Cotswolds' is an amalgamation of 'wolds', meaning gentle hills, and 'cots', which are sheep enclosures. It was the wool trade that made the region wealthy — in the Middle Ages 50 per cent of England's economy came from wool — and that heritage can be seen today in the many manor houses and churches scattered among its rolling hills.
Drive the country roads, some of them of Roman origin, like the Fosse Way, and you'll come across the most astonishing manor houses and stately homes hidden behind honey-coloured walls. It was at one such palatial residence that the country wedding I had flown so far to attend took place.
Chastleton House, in the tiny village of the same name, is a Jacobean mansion built between 1607 and 1612 by the son of a prosperous wool merchant. Managed by the National Trust, it was agreed that the gardens could be used for the wedding photography following the service next door in 13th century St Mary's Church.
Chastleton House, a Jacobean Manor. Photo / Mark Meredith
As the bells pealed and the guests mingled outside — ladies in splendid hats and summer dresses and men in morning suits and fancy waistcoats — tourists gawped and the English summer sizzled, 34C and counting. I thought I would melt. The reception in a magnificent marquee with the backdrop of Chastleton House topped off the archetypal English country wedding. It was like a scene from a Jane Austen novel, worth every mile it took to fly there.
