Gloucestershire - History, Holidays, and Fine Food
Gloucestershire, pronounced Glostershire, is a pretty English county located south west of the English midlands yet not south-west enough to be truly part of the English south-west! The capital of Gloucestershire is the city of Gloucester, and that is where we begin our tour. The city lies at the foot of the Cotswold Hills on the Severn River at its last point before the river widens and becomes the Severn estuary. There are still docks down on the river, yet today they are mainly used for pleasure and leisure boats. The huge stone warehouses and mills have for the most part been converted into sought after apartments and shops, particularly antique shops. The city is ancient, once Roman named Glevum, and that was by no means its earliest history. Dominating the skyline is the majestic grey-stone Cathedral. You cannot visit Gloucester without visiting this stunning building. Oddly these days Gloucester is not the biggest town in the county, that honour belongs to nearby Cheltenham, a fast growing bustling town located just a few miles away. Only in England can the city be smaller than the town, but that is how it is here. Cheltenham is famous for its Regency architecture, outside of the capital second only to Bath in quantity and splendour. The town is also rightly renowned for its National Hunt horse racing meeting, four days in March when half of Ireland seemingly evacuate their blessed isle and trek across the Irish sea to cheer on their favourites to victory (more often than not!) Visit in Cheltenham Gold Cup week and you will be fortunate to find vacant accommodation anywhere within 25 miles of the track. National Hunt racing is for races over jumps, and you won’t find a celebration of jump racing anywhere to match the Cheltenham Festival. Gloucester is a rugby city, rugby and cricket, Cheltenham for the racing and football, for they possess the only professional soccer team in the county. Journey half an hour’s drive north of the twin towns and you will come to Tewkesbury, another ancient town with a rich history. It is situated on a gravel spit just above the flood level close to where the rivers Severn and Avon merge. Particularly heavy rainfall makes the inhabitants nervous, and with good reason. The Abbey dominates this town, the second senior church in the county, and another must see for those interested in such things. The Abbey was founded at the end of the 11th century. Today Tewkesbury still boasts an impressive array of half-timbered houses. Indeed remove the traffic and you could almost believe you were stepping back in time a century, or two, or three, or four! Tewkesbury has another grizzly piece of history for which it is remembered. The Battle of Tewkesbury fought south of the town on May 4th 1471, a bloody affair in the War of Roses, Lancastrian against Yorkists, the Crown of England at stake. Edward, the Prince of Wales, son of Henry the Sixth was slain, and the Lancastrian cause was fatally wounded with his passing. But enough of history, and fearsome battles from long ago. Venture south west of Gloucester and follow the Severn River to the Slimbridge Wild Fowl trust. This is a bird sanctuary where thousands of birds are fed and provided for everyday. It was established by the late Sir Peter Scott and is probably the most famous bird reserve in all of England. If you have any interest in bird watching, no matter how slight, a visit to Slimbridge is a treat in store for you. Venture further east and south of Gloucester and you must climb the Cotswold Hills, a huge limestone ridge that runs diagonally across England almost from Bristol to Oxford. Take the steep road up to Birdlip and turn right at the Air Balloon pub. Look out for the fantastic views from the right as you journey further up and over. The stone is an easy on the eye cream and gold, and the houses, rarely thatched here, preserve the traditional stone colour throughout the county. Once over the Cotswolds you descend to Cirencester, another ancient town, known as Corinium in Roman times. You can still follow the ancient perfectly straight Roman road from here all the way southeast to Sarum (Salisbury). Today it is a fast four-lane highway, but somehow you just know the ancient Roman road builders would have approved of the new modern highway that follows their route. Within the Cotswold district you will find umpteen picture postcard villages and small towns with poetic sounding names, such as Bourton-on-the-water, Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Stow-on-the-Wold, and the more oddly named Upper Slaughter, and Lower Slaughter. In summer these towns become crammed with tourists and day-trippers alike. Perhaps you may prefer quieter sleepier places, perhaps explore some of the lesser known and smaller villages, there are plenty to choose from, and all within easy drives. The Cotswolds is a very pretty area, rolling lush pastures, rich farmland and no surprise then that Royalty choose to live here. Prince Charles and Princess Anne both keep their main residences in Gloucestershire. Gloucester and Cheltenham boast fast road and rail links to London, two to three hours with a following wind, the local produce is fine cheese, excellent meat, and local lush fruit and vegetables. Continue your journey across the Severn westwards towards Wales, but before you reach there, explore the Forest of Dean that lies between the Rivers Severn and Wye. Hilly and thickly forested it is home to deer and more recently re-introduced wild boar, not to be trifled with, especially when they are chaperoning youngsters. Then you descend into the Wye Valley, and once you cross the river, you are in a different country, Wales, home of the Celts. The huge ancient castle at Chepstow and another at Monmouth are reminders of wars gone past, and of the very fact that you are leaving Gloucestershire behind. If you visit Britain for two weeks, and decide to spend one week in London, a second week in the Cotswolds will come as a welcome change. A chance to wind down. To do some walking, contemplating a slower pace of life, and none the worse for that. Enjoy. You will find more than 6,000 holiday cottages, villas and apartments worldwide on my web site www.pebblebeachmedia.co.uk David Carter has written hundreds of articles published in a wide variety of publications. His latest work is SPLAM! A 240+ page property letting manual. Check out http://www.splam.co.uk for details. He also runs a holiday cottage website, http://www.pebblebeachmedia.co.uk where you can choose from over 6,000 fantastic holiday cottages, apartments and villas throughout the world. You can contact David directly at supalife@aol.com on any matter. |
Other Horse Racing Articles
Snorkeling Fins Fins are an important part of snorkeling gear. With their flat wide surface they allow the snorkeler to easily navigate under water. The larger the fins, the more force they provide in the forward direction; but larger fins are also heavier and may impede motion. Medium-sized fins are reportedly best.Snorkel fins are available in heel-str ...The Secrets of Cold Tables The CrapshooterThe Secrets of Cold TablesPssst...! Wanna know a secret?How about the secret of profiting from cold tables?It's not hard to find a cold table. Just look for quiet tables with lots of empty spaces and somber looking people with just a few chips in front of them. You can also look for a lot of don't bets ...Isles Strike Gold with Nolan; Hire New GM as Well The New York Islanders have effectively ended the long and tedious search for a new GM and Head Coach, when they officially announced the signing of Neil Smith as their new GM, and Ted Nolan as the Head Coach. I’ll start by saying that I think the move to sign Ted Nolan as coach was an excellent move, but the signing of Neil Smith is a bit iffy; ...The Triple Crown - Horse Racing's Ultimate Challenge The Triple Crown, like so many of our best traditions, wasn’t created, it grew into being. During the late 1800’s three different tracks created races to test the new crop of three year olds. These three races, the Belmont Stakes, the Preakness and the Kentucky Derby were held in the same year for the first time in 1875. It wasn’t until 44 ye ...Kansas Casinos There are five Kansas Casinos gamblers can enjoy while visiting the state. Kansas casinos are located in Horton, Mayette, Powhattan, and White Cloud and tourists should make a point to stop in one or more of the Kansas casinos during their stay. Likewise, in addition to the five Kansas casinos, tourists may also enjoy paying a visit to Kansas' W ...Guide to Betting Horse Racing Anyone who says horse racing isn't exciting hasn't been to a good racetrack yet. Once you understand the terms and processes in racing horses, betting becomes an intoxicating event. While horse racing has been called the sports of kings, it doesn't take a pile of gold to play and win good money at it. Today, I am going to run over the basic term ...New Zealand Adventure Activities New Zealand's landscape and temperate climate lends itself to outdoor activity. The country is renowned for its wide range of adventure pastimes, with the best known being bungy jumping, jetboating, rafting, snowboarding and skiing. Adventure means different things to different people and the best aspect of the New Zealand adventure scene is tha ...Alana Discovers That She No Longers Needs To Power Dress! A high-powered professional who looked the part in her power suits, Alana admitted that she had a deep-seated fear of being “found out”. Looking at her, it was almost impossible to believe the words that were coming out of her mouth – but hers was a story I had heard many times before.Fear of not being good enough drives many men and wom ...How to play Texas Hold'em Both variations of Texas Hold’em (Limit & No Limit) are played with a standard deck of 52 cards, what’s different about Hold’em is how players make their hands. In this popular version of poker, players receive 2 face-down cards – called the hole or pocket cards. These two cards make your starting hand. As betting rounds progress, up to 5 commun ...Come Boldly! “Come boldly to the throne of grace”! (Hebrews 4:16) Why? In the Old Testament the High Priest sacrificed an unblemished lamb for the atonement of the sins of the people. This sacrifice, which was always performed in the outer court of the temple, had been ordained by God.Jesus Christ is our High Priest. He became Himself the Lamb (Rev. 5 ...Las Vegas Odds & Ends The Las Vegas Hilton, home of the prestigious SuperContest football handicapping competition, will give away $10,000 in weekly drawings throughout the upcoming season as the resort turns its legenday theater into "Football Central" on NFL Sundays.Food and drink specials, including $1 hot dogs and draft beer, .will be served beginning with ...City of Des Moines: An Interesting Place City of Des Moines is rich in all sorts of tourist attractions. It is the capital of Iowa. Living History Farms, Zoo, parks, theatres and anything you name you will find that here. Something for everyone seems to be the hallmark of this place. Start your day at the elegant Living History Farms and head for the Blank Park zoo in the afternoon to ...Horse Racing Horse racing has thrived as a popular sport for thousands of years. It is in fact one of the oldest sports known to mankind. From the time historical records were maintained one can see that horse racing was an organized sport all over the world. In fact, horse racing events were part of the Greek Olympics as far back as 638 BC.The origi ...Problem Solving in Barrel Racing Part I Running Past the First BarrelYour first barrel is a different set up and turn then the other two. At the barrel you are coming in at a full out run from the start. You also turn this barrel at a different angle than the others. This barrel is called the “money barrel” because if you knock this barrel, your run is over with, if you ...Top Ten Reasons Why Men Don't Want To Learn The Alexander Technique The Alexander Technique has been in existence for well over a hundred years and it has proved tremendously successful in helping people overcome back pain, breathing problems, poor posture and stress. So why is it that more women than men choose to learn it?1. The majority of Alexander teachers are women. So what if F.M. Alexande ...Online Casino Slots vs. Land Based Casino Slots When online casinos first emerged in the 1990’s they were considered rogue, cheated winners and did not pay affiliate commissions. These days much of that has changed. 99% of online casinos are legitimate businesses with an occasional bad apple, which is usually a result of poor management rather than anything else.Today, the online casin ...Did the Sabbath Change to Sunday? In over 105 languages Saturday translates to Sabbath. In Italy it is called Sabbato, in Russia Subbota, in Portugal Sabbado, in Spain Sabado and in Poland Sobota. All of these names mean "Sabbath" or "rest day" in the various languages.The fourth commandment of the Bible says Exo 20:8-11 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six d ...Using Statistics to Win at Football Betting Using statistics available from the website site listed below you can download all the results day-by-day from virtually any football league in the world. Then you can study the statistical analysis on the results for each league that you are interested in for the whole of the current season to give, for example:- % of m ...Horse Racing Basics Horse racing is perhaps one of the most common and attractive wagering game. Every country that permits horse racing earns huge revenue through it. However, not every one is aware that a horse race has more to it than four legged animals and bets. For example, how many if us know about the evolution of horse racing, or where the first race was r ...Sports Betting 101- How to Bet on Horse Racing Horse racing along with what is known as buggy racing is still considered tops in many circles of the American sports betting world. The annual highlight of horse racing takes place every year during the months of May and June with what is known as the Triple Crown races which are held at three different race tracks.The Kentucky Derby tak ...Party Themes for Summer Parties Hot weather provides endless options in party themes for summer parties. Pool parties, barbeques, gardening, athletics, beach and luau all have potential for decorating and game themes. Any aspect of the carefree summer season can provide inspiration for outdoor party themes. Sailing, racing or horse back riding can give a central idea to the dé ...Betting Besides the Bowl Super Bowl XL is, of course, the talk of the town, but sports bettors have other events on which to wager leading up to the big day.Basketball, college and pro, and golf are among the biggies, but the horses and buggies are in action -- or soon will be -- too.Thoroughbred racing already has kicked off its run to the Triple Crown, b ...Religion and Science No matter what do we do for living, how educated we are, how wealthy we are and how nice we look, we all have different beliefs in what is the supra power upon us all. This is what we call religion. Its roots go deep into the matriarchal way of life of our predators when totems became first gods and were honored as such. It is a very interesting ...Horse Tack Horse tack refers to the accessories worn by domesticated horses. Tacking a horse is the act of fitting a horse with a wide range of equipment before the horse is taken for a ride. Tacking up a horse requires expertise, since any discomfort for the horse causes a lot of strain for both the horse and the rider. The tack also has to be of the exac ...Social Steps To See You By Opening The "I" Of Mind Every true genius, every creative mind has known the dark night of searching for a truth one could sense yet not quite grasp nor express, has felt the compelling desire to birth into full view the challenging inkling that something more is there, and has sat in the disheartening unease that precedes the dawn of clarity and revelation. That is in ...Chasing Your Dreams! Friends, it is always a power of your dreams and a motive to move ahead, which is required to move ahead and to be successful in life. Does it sound, impractical; let me share with you, something practical and real.Some real time facts:1.Out of the first four stores F. W. Woolworth opened, three failed. When he died, he was worth m ...
|
