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Short Break Around Bibury with Gillian Hull

As I write this on Easter Saturday, we have already seen flurries of snow, and there may be more. Our garden is, however, very slowly coming to life with crocuses, scillas, anemones, hellebores and a few primulas in flower. Each day there are more daffodils out, but how one longs to urge those great swathes of yellow to shine forth and celebrate spring. A recent visit south of the border confirmed it was slowly making its way north. We spent a day in the Cotswolds and soaked up the warmth of the sun amongst water meadows interspersed with villages of mellow stone. It is a good time to visit the area;  there are fewer crowds and one is surrounded by new life in the countryside.

Our first stop was the ancient village of Bibury whose origins date back to the 8th century. The Bishop of Worcester granted land by the River Coln to Earl Leppa and his daughter Beage. The village is mentioned in Domesday Book as ’Beaganbyrig’, from which the present name of Bibury is derived. At the time of the Reformation the village was bought for £225, after 800 years of church ownership. During the 17th and early 18th centuries its wealth, like many Cotswold communities, was still based on its wool,  considered the best in Europe.

 Later in the 18th century, the wool trade moved northwards with industrialisation, quarrying became popular and stone was used to replace deteriorating timber houses. Many of the village’s attractive properties date from this time.

Bibury’s church boasts some Saxon work, and was one of many in the area which continued to profit from local wool merchants‘ wealth. Their impressive tombs in Bibury churchyard indicate their success! Beside the church is Bibury Court, of mellow Cotswold stone, and originating in Tudor times. It is now a hotel. 17th century Arlington Mill, built on the River Coln on a Domesday site, is at the village’s centre.

In the 19th century it was one of the area’s biggest corn mills. Bibury Trout Farm, founded in 1902, was the first such farm in the country. It was intended to stock local rivers and streams with brown trout. Today it covers 15 acres using the crystal clear water from a local spring for brown and rainbow trout. Its hatchery spawns up to six million trout ova a year.

Wandering around the village is a delight, and visitors admire the much photographed Arlington Row with its steeply pitched roofs. Originally built as a timber-framed wool hall, in the 17th century it was turned into cottages for weavers who ‘fulled’ (washed and de-greased) their woollen cloth at the nearby mill.

Bibury once had a successful racecourse patronised by royalty. Charles II visited with Nell Gwynne and George IV also attended a meeting.

Wandering along lanes, the countryside still seems remote out of season. The River Coln flows through winding valleys, woods and water-meadows for 25 miles before joining the Thames. It has given its name to three charming village well worth visiting.:  Coln Rogers, Coln St Dennis and Coln St Aldwyns. The latter was named after a hermit, St Ealdwine. We admired its Norman church (much restored), the ancient Manor House and dovecot, and looking out for trout, we walked by the clear stream winding its way through the meadows. This gentle landscape is particularly attractive in the soft light of early March.

Medieval Stained Glass Windows

If time permits, drive a little further south to the market town of Fairford. It has the only parish church in the country with a complete set of medieval stained glass windows. They represent the Bible story from Adam and Eve to the last Judgment. The 28 superb windows were twice removed for safe-keeping, in the Civil War and the Second World War. They are full of detail and show buildings with Dutch-style gables;  Bernard Flower, glass painter to Henry VII, employed Flemish in addition to English craftsmen in Fairford.

In the late 19th century the Cotswolds suffered badly from the agricultural depression. Bibury was fortunate when William Morris termed it ’the most beautiful village in England’, and tourists began to bring prosperity back to the area. Try and visit in spring when the gentle landscape comes alive, and enjoy a delicious lunch at the New Inn, Coln St Aldwyns.