The Cotswolds: A Cultural History

by Jane Bingham

Overview

With its gentle hills and timeless villages, the Cotswold countryside is a vision of natural beauty and rural calm, but it is also a region rich in history. In this new addition to the Landscapes of the Imagination series, Jane Bingham offers an intriguing portrait of the Cotswolds over the centuries, ranging from ancient stone circles and ruined Roman villas to the Cotswolds today, a picturesque destination spot popular with country-weekenders, tourists, and celebrities. Readers will visit fine churches and manor houses that have survived from the Middle Ages, and tour a landscape still bearing the scars of the Civil War. The home of kings and nobles since Saxon times, the region is famous for its elegant estates, such as Blenheim Palace—England's grandest stately home—while signs of the early industrial age can be seen in its mills and factories. Artists, musicians, and writers were also drawn to this rural paradise, from William Shakespeare and William Morris to T.S. Eliot and Ralph Vaughn Williams. Bingham captures it all in her charming portrait of this glorious spot in the heart of southern England.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195398762
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/18/2010
Series:	Landscapes of the Imagination
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jane Bingham is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University and has contributed articles to a range of publications including The Independent and This England.

Table of Contents

Introduction
A Country Made of Men's Visions
Looking at the Land (); The History of the Cotswolds (); Changing Views: Commentators on the Cotswolds (); Living Landscape or Heritage Park? (); Recent Views: Behind the Pretty Pictures (); The Insiders' View (); Imagination and Images (); Responses to the Landscape ()

Chapter One
Ancient Echoes: From Prehistory to the Coming of the Anglo-Saxons
Exploring Belas Knap (); Tombs from the Stone Age (); At the Rollright Stones (); Bronze-Age Survivals (); Clues from the Celts (); Remembering the Romans (); Tracing the Ancient Ways (); After the Romans (); Anglo-Saxon Echoes ()

Chapter Two
Finding God in Gloucestershire: Saints, Churches and Clerics
Early Abbeys and the Boy Saint of Winchcombe (); Sacred Sites and Saxon Sculptures (); Norman Churches and Carvings (); Stories on Walls (); Woolgothic Wonders (); The End of the Abbeys (); Fame and Fraud at Hailes Abbey (); Visitors at the Rectory: Jane Austen and John Wesley (); John Keble at Eastleach (); Non-Conformism: A Different Way of Worship (); Selsey Church: Pre-Raphaelite Showcase (); What Next? ()

Chapter Three
Living off the Land: Sheep, Crops and Stone
Wealth from Wool (); Fields, Commons and Walls (); Good Times and Bad Times for Farmers (); Experiments and Communities: Charterville and Whiteway (); Old Mont of Enstone: A Life on the Land (); Farming Today: Super-stars and Strugglers (); The Stone and the Magician: Quarries and Quarrymen (); Using the Stone: Stonemasons and Dry-stone Wallers (); Building Today: The Tradition Continues ()

Chapter Four
The Cotswolds at War: Battlefields, Memories and Memorials
The Civil War Begins: The Battle of Edgehill (); Fighting on the Edge: The Battle of Lansdown (); A Region at War (); Damage and Confusion (); The Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold: The End of the Fighting (); Images of Cavaliers: Stow-on-the-Wold and Swinbrook (); The Burford Levellers (); Two World Wars (); Bertie, May and Mrs. Fish in Wartime (); Modern Times ()

Chapter Five
Posh Cotswolds: Royalty, Aristocracy and Celebrities
Woodstock Palace: Kings and Queens in the Forest (); Minster Lovell and a Dreadful Doom (); Sudeley Castle and the Tudors (); Blenheim Palace: England's Grandest Stately Home (); Marlboroughs, Vanderbilts and Churchills (); Dyrham Park and The Remains of the Day (); Chastleton and Stanway: Houses with Memories (); New Owners for Old Homes ()

Chapter Six
Mills, Steam and Machinery: The Industrial Age
Hard Labour at Castle Combe (); "A Truly Noble Manufacture" (); The Coming of the Machines (); John Halifax, Gentleman: Perfect Progress at Dunkirk Mill? (); "They Say the Suffering is Very Great Indeed" (); Changing Trades (); Blankets and Bliss in Oxfordshire (); Carving up the Landscape: Roads and Canals (); Great Railway Adventures: Isambard Kingdom Brunel (); Train-Spotting in the Cotswolds: The Reverend Awdry ()

Chapter Seven
"Heaven on Earth": William Morris at Kelmscott Manor and Broadway Tower
William and Janey (); "A Little House out of London" (); A Serpent in Paradise (); The "Old Grey House by the River" (); Later Years at Kelmscott (); Kelmscott Today (); Views from Broadway Tower ()

Chapter Eight
Seeking the Simple Life: Arts and Crafts at Sapperton and Chipping Campden
Back to the Land: In Search of a Rural Alternative (); Gimson and the Barnsleys: The Start of a Dream (); Pinbury Park: A Workshop in the Woods (); Settling in at Sapperton (); Ernest Gimson: Master Designer (); Ashbee's Vision: The Start of the Guild of Handicrafts (); Creating Camelot: The Guild at Chipping Campden (); Good Years for the Guild (); The End of the Dream (); Chipping Campden Today ()

Chapter Nine
Arty Crafty Cotswolds: The Next Generation
Campden Crafts (); Fine Furniture in Broadway (); Plain Pottery in Winchcombe (); Women Designers in the Cotswolds (); "Arty Crafty" Lifestyles (); Designing Cotswold Homes (); Owlpen Manor: "Resuscitated Dream-Place" (); Arts and Crafts on Display: Two Museums and Rodmarton Manor (); Cotswold Crafts Today ()

Chapter Ten
A Cotswold Life: Laurie Lee in the Slad Valley
Lees in the Valley (); Scenes from Slad (); After Rosie (); Return to Slad (); A Child in the Valley (); The Return of the Native? (); Slad Today ()

Chapter Eleven
Picturing the Scene: Writers, Artists and Musicians in the Cotswolds
William Shakespeare: "Wild Hills" and Justice Shallow's country (); On Bredon Hill with Housman (); Ivor Gurney: Poetry and Music at Cranham and Crickley (); James Elroy Flecker on Painswick Hill (); Hilaire Belloc: A Brief Voyage on the Evenlode (); A Poet Laureate in Chipping Campden (); A Supertramp in Nailsworth (); T. S. Eliot at Burnt Norton (); U. A. Fanthorpe at Wotton-under-Edge (); John Buchan's Adventures in Wychwood Forest (); J. B. Priestley's Hitherton-on-the-Wole (); Barbara Pym in Finstock (); Jilly (and Joanna) in Rutshire (); Artists and Writers in Broadway (); The View from Far Oakridge: Rothenstein, Beerbohm and Drinkwater (); Stanley Spencer in Leonard Stanley (); Music from the Cotswolds: Vaughan Williams and Holst ()

Chapter Twelve
Eccentric Cotswolds: Collectors, Dreamers and Dangerous Games
Snowshill Manor: A House of Curiosities (); "Curiouser and Curiouser" (); Sezincote House: A Mogul Fantasy (); Batsford Arboretum: Inspiration from the East (); Mitfords in the Cotswolds (); A Very Unusual Childhood (); Games, Quarrels and Horror at Swinbrook (); Swinbrook Today (); Woodchester Mansion: The House That Was Never a Home (); Toddington Manor: Damien Hirst's Treasure Cave ()

Chapter Thirteen
Shaping the Landscape: Gardens and Gardeners in the Cotswolds
Cirencester Park: Alexander Pope's "Enchanted Forest" (); Eighteenth-Century Elegance: Rousham, Painswick and Stanway (); Capability Brown at Blenheim (); Humphry Repton (and Jane Austen) in the Cotswolds (); Chastleton House: A Jacobean Wonderland (); Owlpen Manor: Gardens of Paradise (); Arts and Crafts Gardens in the Cotswolds (); Major Lawrence Johnson at Hidcote Manor (); Two Women's Visions: Kiftsgate Court and Barnsley House (); The Gardener Prince at Highgrove ()

Chapter Fourteen
The Cotswolds at Play: Sports, Games and Leisure Pursuits
Hunting Country (); Equestrian Sports (); Ancient Races (); Cricket on the Wolds (); The Cotswold Olimpicks (); Festivals, Fairs and Merrymaking (); Cheese Rolling, River Football and Other Strange Pursuits (); Morris Dancers (And Some Strong Reactions) (); Leisure and Pleasure (); The Heart of England: Rambling and Ramblers ()

Further Reading

Index of Literary & Historical Names

Index of Places & Landmarks