Like a scene from 'Far from the Madding Crowd'. A walk from Great Rollright to Whichford.
I was the generation of teenagers that got Thomas Hardy's book to do for O level English Lit. It's still there somewhere in the back of my head. I loved reading (typical only child and probably why I became an illustrator) but I could never get on with Hardy's gloom.
A favourite area for walking for me as I can get to it from the Banbury to Chipping Norton bus-route.
Off the bus at Great Rollright then over the hilly landscape of the Cotswold fringes to the little remote village of Whichford, just over the hill, and supposedly my lift home from the Norman Knight pub.
But shock horror, this very good pub with a very pretty beer garden overlooking the village green is shut and in the middle of refurbishment to become a 'gastro pub', although a local said they were going to have a spit and sawdust shed at the side to house the ordinary locals.
This area between Banbury and Chipping Norton has recently been named England's 'Hamptons'.
Powered by A list celebs, and carefully anonymous big money moving in, and Soho Farmhouse catering for their spa treatments, a lot of big money is making its home here. A couple of fields to the left is a case in point. On the OS map a tiny remote building with barns is called Combe Cottage. In reality now a substantial 'Georgian' Cotswold mansion (it looks a bit like Highgrove, King Charles' pad ) with terraced gardens and outbuildings.
Like a scene from 'Far from the Madding Crowd'. A walk from Great Rollright to Whichford.
I was the generation of teenagers that got Thomas Hardy's book to do for O level English Lit. It's still there somewhere in the back of my head. I loved reading (typical only child and probably why I became an illustrator) but I could never get on with Hardy's gloom.
A favourite area for walking for me as I can get to it from the Banbury to Chipping Norton bus-route.
Off the bus at Great Rollright then over the hilly landscape of the Cotswold fringes to the little remote village of Whichford, just over the hill, and supposedly my lift home from the Norman Knight pub.
But shock horror, this very good pub with a very pretty beer garden overlooking the village green is shut and in the middle of refurbishment to become a 'gastro pub', although a local said they were going to have a spit and sawdust shed at the side to house the ordinary locals.
This area between Banbury and Chipping Norton has recently been named England's 'Hamptons'.
Powered by A list celebs, and carefully anonymous big money moving in, and Soho Farmhouse catering for their spa treatments, a lot of big money is making its home here. A couple of fields to the left is a case in point. On the OS map a tiny remote building with barns is called Combe Cottage. In reality now a substantial 'Georgian' Cotswold mansion (it looks a bit like Highgrove, King Charles' pad ) with terraced gardens and outbuildings.