DG24013 Charm of the Cotswolds Book 1999 V01 290324

The Cotswolds was named an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) but it was renamed by the Government as a National Landscape in November 2023 in a rebranding exercise. There are 46 National Landscape areas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Cotswolds is the nearest National Landscape to my home in Redditch, Worcestershire so it has become a regular go to location to experience a change in landscape, culture and charm. The word “charm” well describes why the Cotswolds is such an attractive destination. In my case it always provided such a different upland setting in contrast to the lowlands of Worcestershire and Warwickshire. With it only one hour away you could instantly transform yourself into a different world. As a family we always look to make such a visit every Spring just as the daffodils are blooming. For special family celebrations we always looked to head to the Cotswolds. Oddly enough our destination is normally Broadway which is not  located on the Cotswold escarpment but at the foot of Broadway Hill (sometimes called Fish Hill) just beneath the escarpment edge. Although Broadway, in fact in  the Vale of Evesham,  is entirely Cotswold in character with its many honey coloured stone buildings. The village has Tudor, Stuart and Georgian houses, farm labourer’s cottages, hotels. inns, and shops. Just a visit to Broadway can give you a spiritual uplift with it being so different.

Now to the book “Charm of the Cotswolds” which was published by Readers Digest Association in 1999. The Readers Digest Association invested enormous effort into publishing these amazing books. It is difficult to appreciate that this book creation activity, upon which the publishing industry was based, has now passed with the arrival of the internet. Factual books have overnight lost their commercial value with the justification for investing in their publication now in most cases gone. Consumers now want their information screen based not paper based. This book was £1.50 in a Charity Shop with it likely if not purchased to end up in landfill. Somehow the digital substitutes for books like this will never offer the same depth of experience you get reading it in a book format. Screen based information these days is so fragmented and the effort to produce such book masterpieces is no longer justified since no return can be made on the investment. Factual books are disappearing from our society in a mass exodus and in 10 years’ time they will be considered a rarity with those that do get published very expensive to purchase. You can already witness the rarer ones in perfect condition selling for hundreds if not thousands of pounds. So let us enjoy them whilst we can still read them all be it in a PDF format here.

So what appealed to me about this book was it had within it essentially another book which Readers Digest had syndicated which was originally published as “A Year in the Cotswolds” by John Hudson. John lives in the Cotswolds and based the book on looking at Cotswold life through the seasons. He manages to convey in a unique style what living life in the Cotswolds feels like in fact embedding emotions into his writings in a subtle way. Upon reading his words you are going to fall in love with life in the Cotswolds. To write like this on a factual subject requires the author to have a particular gift as well experiencing Cotswold life on a day to day basis.

The Original John Hudson Book called "A Year in the Cotswolds" 

included in the "Charm of the Cotswolds Book".

 

The Charm of the Cotswolds is linked to below for you to read. It is likely that LinkedIn will block it because of its size so to read it you will need to go directly to my adigitalgeography.blogspot.com site and launch this post DG24013 dated 290324. So by removing LinkedIn from the software stack it should allow you to download it successfully. Read and enjoy it.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DzBkD3Y3X8dN2rfSfn9yQGeZ7UlPPvy7/view?usp=sharing

The one venue in Broadway we always enjoy for a meal or for an overnight stay is the Broadway Hotel.

 

 Broadway Hotel. Sit by the log fire on a dark Winter's Night. 

You will usually end up talking to some American Guests.  

Another popular Cotswold village we visit is Chipping Campden which although a lot less commercial than Broadway is sited on the top of the escarpment with the open sided Market Hall the starting point for the 102 mile Cotswold Way. 

 Chipping Camden High Street

For my 50^th Wedding Anniversary we splashed out hiring a £1m property in Chipping Campden high street called Singer House for a Friday and Saturday night in 2019. This property looks so insignificant from the high street but in fact it was fabulous inside with our main bedroom used as a ballroom when it had access to much larger property sited to its left called Bedfont House.

The Google Street View Geotag for Singer House is included below this Street View photograph for you to use.

Google Street View of Singer House entrance grey door on the right.

http://www.google.com/search?q=52.0516291,-1.7790429

 

Also subject to you having a TikToc Account take a look inside Singer House using the link below.

https://www.tiktok.com/@hannahfelicity2/video/7342566165715242272?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Some more history on Bedfont House and Singer House

https://www.chippingcampdenhistory.org.uk/content/activities/projects/bedfont-house-and-the-griffiths-family/why-bedfont-house

Publisher Copyright of "The Charm of the Cotswolds" is acknowledged as the Readers Digest Association.  DMB Publishing the Digital Publisher of this digitised copy operates on a strictly non for profit basis, whilst it is shared here strictly under a Creative Commons 4.0 Licence defined by a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Deed. The Copyright owner is acknowledged and if there is any objection to this digitised copy the content will be immediately removed from the internet. The sole objective of its publication on the internet is to raise public awareness of the loss of such valuable books and to extend their time being read. Similarly the Copyright of the author of "A Year in the Cotswolds"  John Hudson is acknowledged and the same criteria defined above applies to his Copyright ownership.