Steeped in history, rich in heritage and awash with natural beauty, England's largest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Cotswolds is a charming blend of bustling market towns, sleepy villages, and breathtaking natural scenery.
A range of hills in central England, sometimes called the "Heart of England", reaching just over 300m or 1000 feet at it's highest point. The area has been designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The highest point in the Cotswolds is Cleeve Hill at 330m/1083ft.
The Cotswolds lie within the counties of Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire. The county of Gloucestershire forms the largest area of the Cotswolds.
The area is characterised by attractive small towns and villages built of the underlying Cotswold stone (a yellow oolitic limestone). In the Middle Ages, the wool trade made the Cotswolds prosperous; hence the Speaker of the British House of Lords sits on the Woolsack showing where the Medieval wealth of the country came from. Some of this money was put into the building of churches so the area has a number of large, handsome Cotswold stone "wool churches".
Typical Cotswold towns are Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway, Burford, Chipping Norton, Cirencester, Moreton-in-Marsh, Stow-on-the-Wold and Winchcombe. The town of Chipping Campden is notable for being the home of the Arts and Crafts movement, founded by William Morris at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. William Morris lived occasionally in Broadway Tower, a folly now part of a country park. Chipping Campden is also known for the annual Cotswold Games, a celebration of sports and games dating back to the early 17th century.
