TweetStow-on-the-Wold is today best known as a rather genteel Cotswold town, full of antique shops, weekending Londoners and Japanese tourists. Twice a year, the Stow horse fair sees an influx of Traveller families from across the country come to camp … Continue reading
TweetIn 1822, a Gloucestershire magistrate reported a farmer for drawing his waggon with five horses in the Cotswold Hills. The Cotswolds were, by this point, criss-crossed by turnpike roads, where a turnpike gate keeper would charge tolls for people to … Continue reading
TweetIn August 1840, William Campion, aged around 34, appeared before judge Mr Mr Justice Williams at Oxford Crown Court, accused with “maliciously and feloniously cutting and wounding” a man following an argument about his mowing skills. Campion and his victim, … Continue reading
TweetIn 1851, the village of Naunton was home to Sarah Charles and her sister-in-law Elizabeth. They were both widows, and had taken on the running of their late husbands’ farms – together with the employment of live-in farm servants. They … Continue reading
TweetRelationships between farmers and their agricultural labourers could often be strained, reflecting the differences in class and attitude towards them. Whereas some farmers were good employers, others could be strict; unsympathetic towards their workers’ plights; or just plain bad. But … Continue reading
Tweet On the Fosseway, the Roman road that stretches through the Cotswolds to Cirencester, lies an architecturally pleasing public house – The Inn At Fossebridge. Gloucestershire Archives researchers believe there has been a building on the site since 1634. It … Continue reading
Tweet In the churchyard of St James’s Church in Chipping Campden stands this gravestone. It has a detailed description of a small local family whose lives were never the same after the death of one of its members. The Roberts … Continue reading
TweetDeath was part of everyday life in the Victorian Cotswolds. Doctors charged for their services, which meant that many poor people could not afford to get healthcare and suffered on their own. Diseases spread quickly in close communities; mortality was … Continue reading
TweetEdward Reynolds was born in 1844 in Stow-on-the-Wold, the fifth child and third son of William and Ann Reynolds. William was a baker, born around 1806 in Little Rissington. He and Ann married in 1832 in Shipton-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire, and their … Continue reading
