The County of Gloucestershire and Bristol

With South Gloucestershire and Bristol, the county’s population is 1¼ million and its area almost 1½ thousand square miles. Though Bristol is a separate entity, it comes under the wing of Gloucestershire for our purposes. Since the Cabot brothers set sail in 1497 and discovered the American mainland, Bristol took the lead in exploiting the new territories and through the Society of Merchant Venturers in underwriting the development of the early American colonies. The trade in slaves, sugar and tobacco made Bristol very rich and her ships were known the world over. ‘All shipshape and Bristol fashion’ passed into the language.

amongIn the 19th century, this tradition was reborn when I.K. Brunel built the first vessel in history to combine a steel hull, steam propulsion and a propeller. The S.S. Great Britain makes for a fascinating family outing. Explore-At- Bristol is one of the most exciting and involving science exhibitions in the country and works well for any age. Bristol Zoo is also among the best.

Some of Bristol’s residential districts have very handsome terraces, notably Clifton with its remarkable suspension bridge. This district has all the urban amenities you would expect in such a place. The Bristol Old Vic, which opened in 1766, is the oldest continuously working theatre in Britain – though presently closed for refurbishment. Queen Elizabeth I thought St Mary Redcliffe to be the finest parish church in her kingdom, an opinion that is still widely shared. Apart from the dazzling purity of the interior, the north porch looks so beautifully oriental that Bristol must have had early contact with distant lands to inspire it. Only a city as anciently rich as Bristol could have a building like the Lord Mayor’s Chapel.

These two churches and the Cathedral are what is left to remind us that before the Blitz and decades of crass ‘development’, only London, Norwich and York could compare for medieval architecture and when later domestic architecture is added, the competition is narrowed to London. Some new development is starting to show the confidence of the city’s earlier greatness. Bristol is a very interesting and entertaining city to visit and there is an infectious vitality to the rejuvenated harbour front.

The glory of Gloucestershire is the Cotswolds, a region it admittedly shares with Oxfordshire, but to which it can undoubtedly lay predominant claim. If the northern and western parts of The County of Gloucestershire and Bristol Britain have spectacle and drama, the Cotswolds have charm. Here stone – grey or honey-coloured stone – is everywhere, brick a rarity; and stone cottages, churches and villages sit as if they had grown out of the gently rolling hills, themselves criss-crossed by grey, mortar-less dry-stone walls. And where else would you find two little rivers with the almost ridiculously beautiful names Evenlode and Windrush?

The Cotswolds’ great period was the fifteenth century, when after the demographic disaster of the Black Death, labour shortage turned the country from arable to pastoral use and the region became the primary supplier of wool to Europe. The legacies of this prosperous time are still visible both in the countryside which is still largely pasture – though with cows now as prevalent as sheep - and in the wonderful “wool churches” built with fifteenth century money. The splendour of this late gothic architecture can be rivalled in England only by Norfolk and Somerset.

Fairford is a perfect example, with in its case the characteristic great windows filled with probably the greatest display of stained glass in England, certainly the only complete narrative set of windows. Cirencester and Northleach have stunningly elaborate fan-vaulted porches. Further north there is the splendour of Chipping Campden’s church set in the middle of a town beautiful even by Cotswold standards. Much older than the great wool churches is Duntisbourne Rouse, a tiny, utterly enchanting almost congregationless Saxon church. At the other extreme, Tewkesbury Abbey, a splendid monastic establishment boasts the biggest Norman tower in Europe.

In Painswick churchyard there are 99 yews, certainly something to see - especially if you are looking for Laurie Lee’s Cider-with-Rosie village of Slad nearby. William Morris called Bibury the most beautiful village in England and as you stand on the bridge over the river Coln and look across the water meadows to a row of medieval almshouses, you can see why.

The Arts and Crafts Movement was born in Gloucestershire, with the Gimson brothers living and working in Sapperton. More recently there was Lynne Chadwick and now there is Damien Hirst, both of these latter being well served by Pangolin Editions at Chalford, one of the leading and largest sculpture foundries in Europe.

The very English art of gardening has also long flourished in the county. To the north are the two great gardens of Hidcote and Kiftsgate, conveniently next door to one another and providing much opportunity to compare and contrast. Hidcote, while originally the creation of one man, Lawrence Johnston, has long been run by the National Trust and though undoubtedly splendid, is thought by many to lack the individuality of its neighbour, which has been run for many years by a family of extremely gifted women. Further south, at Barnsley, the legendary Rosemary Verey created her famous garden. Sadly she is now dead and her house turned into a very fine country house hotel. But the garden may still be seen by those staying in the hotel and its famous laburnum walk underplanted with alliums enjoyed by those who like yellow and purple together. Further south again is the Prince of Wales’s supremely imaginative garden at Highgrove while nearby at Westonbirt is the National Arboretum, 600 acres of one of the finest collections of trees and shrubs in the world.

For many, however, Gloucestershire means not churches or sculpture or gardens, but horses. They are everywhere: trotting along lanes with small girls on their backs or, more grandly, at the trials at Badminton and Gatcombe or at the Beaufort hunt. Riding schools offering lessons or the hire of a hack for an hour or so are easy to find.

Gloucestershire is not all soft charm. To the west of the Cotswolds lies the Severn estuary, panoramic views of which are to be had from the escarpment running north/south roughly along the line of and above the M5. This is flat, open, less interesting country, but nevertheless includes much for the tourist: Slimbridge, the bird sanctuary, founded by Peter Scott, the excitingly grim Berkeley Castle where Edward II met his gruesome end and the great and beautiful Severn Bridge – a surreal schooner sailing through meadows when first seen from miles away and unbelievably uplifting when you are actually on it.

Between the Severn and the Wye rivers is The Forest of Dean, a world of ancient oak woodland, rolling over miles of hilly countryside and some early industrial sites. It is well equipped with parking, picnic sites and forest trails.

And here at last, in the westernmost part of the county, we reach its county town, Gloucester, with two visual treats: its great mediaeval cathedral with magnificent fan-vaulted cloister and a great east window, one of the largest ever conceived, and it is breathtaking. The second is the historic docks, no longer in use but sympathetically restored to form a very engaging space. Sadly, however, there is little else in the city to catch the visitor’s attention, a serious letdown after the other enjoyable towns the county offers. Cirencester, for example, the epitome of a prosperous market town, dating from Roman times or Tewkesbury and Chipping Campden or the antiquedealer towns of Tetbury and Stow-on-the- Wold, which latter must have the greatest assemblage of brown furniture outside London; or, very modern compared with all these, Cheltenham – the Victorian Bath. Cheltenham‘s elegance is not as concentrated as Bath’s, spreading its generous middle-class houses comfortably along tree-lined promenades and at first sight it reeks of gentility but closer attention reveals a buzz of eating, drinking and general enjoyment in the Montpellier area.

Sir Kit McMahon