Some of the prettiest places one can visit in England are the little villages in the Cotswolds west of London, between the dreaming spires of Oxford and Dr Foster's city of Gloucester.
Just over an hour’s drive from Heathrow airport mostly along the M40 motorway, Minster Lovell is one of those typical English villages with quaint thatched cottages and classic country gardens full of colourful spring flowers. There is an old village pub situated at the junction of two winding old roads on which cars are few and far between – and even an ancient mill by the side of a small but fast flowing stream, surrounded by daffodil-lined banks and dandelion-dotted meadows.
Strolling along the narrow country road from the pub one comes across the cold and well preserved 14th century village church – which surprisingly is still used for regular Sunday services. It has beautiful stained-glass windows, a marble effigy of a long deceased knight, and a musty smell of antiquity inside it – the sort of place about which one can say “there’s peace and holy quiet here”. Wandering through the churchyard, one should stop to examine the gravestones both ancient and modern, some covered with fresh flowers and others with thick moss and lichens - monuments which could well have inspired Gray to pen another elegy.
Minster Lovell Hall
Behind the church lie the ruins of what once was Minster Lovell Hall – a manor to which generations of lords were born and where at various times kings of England were reputed to have been wined and dined.
This quaint old village is an ideal place in which to spend a couple of days to rest, relax and unwind. It is tailor made for leisurely long walks along footpaths that skirt ancient fences and olde English styles and unpolluted car-less country roads. These roads were made for walking! If more sedentary but no less pleasurable activities are preferred, one can spend a beautiful spring afternoon seated in the garden of the old inn, sipping a pint of draught English beer or a glass of sweet cider, listening to the chirping of the birds in the trees , allowing the sun to warm the bones and sharing a ploughman’s lunch.
The village provides a convenient base from which to tour the Cotswold countryside as well as visit places like Oxford, Blenheim Palace, and even Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford upon Avon – in all of which accommodation can prove “frightfully dear” during an English summer. There is a small hotel in Minster Lovell which provides comfortable accommodation – good value at £30 per person for bed and breakfast.
Bed and Breakfast in England
One warning though – the breakfast provided in most hotels in England is the standard English fare of bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms and bread with everything being fried (including the bread!). No wonder they describe it as a hearty English breakfast – it is guaranteed to take the cholesterol straight to the heart!
If one does plan to travel to England, one couldn’t do much better than spending the first couple of days in a typical English village such as this – getting over jet lag, walking along those old country roads or enjoying a pint or two of good English beer and easing leisurely into the local time zone.
It certainly provides a healthy start to an English holiday – just as long as one avoids the deep fried bread.
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