Midsomer Myths

Midsomer Myths

The Cotswolds and the West of England The images the tourist brochures and the television detective dramas don’t reveal.

Photographs by Jerry Stewardson

The Cotswolds and the West of England The images the tourist brochures and the television detective dramas don’t reveal.

Photographs by Jerry Stewardson

‘Reality, as it evolves,sweeps me with it. I am struck by everything and, though not everything strikes me in the same way, I am always struck by the same basic contradiction: although I can always see how beautiful anything could be if only I could change it, in practically every case there is nothing I can really do. Everything is changed into something else in my imagination, then the dead weight of things changes it back into what it was in the first place.

A bridge between imagination and reality must be built...’ The Revolution of Everyday Life - Raoul Vaneigem

I have, like many others, visited the Cotswolds and other areas of the West of England to experience something of the idealised past. A time when the sun always shone on a rural idyll, where hours past slowly, disturbed only by the occasional gruesome murder in Upper Slaughter which would be solved within 90 minutes by that lovely old lady who lives in the rose covered cottage at the end of the lane, or by that nice polite detective from a nearby town.

I journeyed through towns and villages with quaint sounding names like Stow on the Wold, Bourton on the Water, Chipping Camden and Midsomer Norton. I visited Glastonbury to immerse myself in Arthurian legend and New Age culture, perhaps to meet with the elves on Glastonbury Tor. In all these locations I found the thatched cottages, the old fashioned corner shops and village pubs were certainly there in abundance, but there was a less glamorous side that never finds its way into the brochures or into the tourists’ compact cameras.

The more picturesque older housing in the Cotswolds has always been in great demand, meaning that the better off, including Kate Moss and Elizabeth Hurley have bought up the more prestigious properties and most of the thatched cottages are now used as commuter bases for executives from Oxford and the West Midlands or as holiday homes. When visiting some of these villages in late winter, I was struck by how empty and silent they appeared. No doubt their owners were working away in offices attempting to worsen the Credit Crunch or were escaping the damp British climate in Chiantishire.

As a result, the ordinary people are priced out of the market and find themselves living in well concealed council estates or in new developments on the edge of the village. The new housing copies the traditional yellow stone and slate roof style - but is built of breeze block and faced with imitation Cotswold stone From the run down garage in Chipping Campden, or the railway station in Bourton, close by Dr Beeching 47 years ago, to the abandoned hotel development of Windrush Heights or the half demolished factories of Glastonbury, I found these to be depressing symbols of the decline of a thriving agricultural/industrial community that now relies on tourism and the city dwellers’ fascination with worlds that exist purely in their imaginations.

Jerry Stewardson May, 2009

From the Bourton-on-the-Water Website Dear Visitor, Welcome to the Bourton-on-the-Water Website, the content of the site has been produced by local people so that you as a visitor, can enjoy at your leisure some of the delightful features of our lovely village and the countryside around it.

The Cotswolds have always been looked upon as the Heart of England. It is one of the few regions with an architectural style all of its own and the steeply pitched roofs, stone mullions and dormer windows are typical. Built almost exclusively in warm yellow Cotswold stone, this delightful village has such a unique appeal to visitors and residents alike.

Regularly voted one of the prettiest villages in England, Bourton-on-the-Water has more than its share of Cotswold houses and cottages, many of them three hundred years old, some dating back to Elizabethan times four hundred years ago.There is plenty to see and do here and we hope this site and the information within makes your stay as enjoyable as possible.

The Chairman, The Chamber of Commerce, Bourton-on-the-Water.

Children Playing in the river

The Beautiful River Windrush

The Main Car Park for Bourton-on-the Water. This group of dilapidated signs is the first thing visitors will see on stepping out of their vehicles.

Selected Quotations from the Bourton Facebook Group ‘bourton is a great place to live. what with the chavs and the kids sitting on the green drinking cider out of the black coke bottles you can get, the fights, boy racers doing the circuit up whiteshoots hill and down past the Welly, the ram raid of the newsagent last year and how many times has the jewlers been broken in to? i can totally see why people want to live there. um.. not’ ‘Im plsed to see ppl luv our luvly little village...even thou its run by tourtists n over populated wit old folk, drunken yobs n chavs...sigh’ ‘I love the way tourists and old people leap in front of your car on a regular basis, normally when they are taking pictures of ducks or grass or something...’

‘Look how the photo makes Bourton look bright and lovely but the main worry is when did they take the photo? Where are all the old people and blind tourists?

Have they been airbrushed out or did they shut the village for photo purposes? ‘ ‘Bourton really isnt that bad!

Or maybe, it really isnt that bed once you've moved out, and just visit for 24hr periods to see friends and family :-)’ ‘It like living in the legue of gentelman (royston vasey)’

‘9,500 sq ft of fun for children up to 12yrs’ - on the Bourton Industrial Estate.

The Model Village is well concealed adjacent to this row of uninspiring lockups, behind a pub

The entrance to the former railway station for Bourton-on-the-Water. The station was closed in 1962 and now it is only possible to get to Bourton by road. Ironically, the station is now used as a storage depot for the Highways Agency.

The more picturesque older housing in the Cotswolds has always been in great demand, meaning that the better off, including Kate Moss and Elizabeth Hurley have bought up the more prestigious properties and most of the thatched cottages are now used as commuter bases for executives from Oxford and the West Midlands.

As a result, the ordinary people are priced out of the market and find themselves living in well concealed council estates or in new developments such as the ones shown here. The houses ape the traditional style - but are built of breeze block and faced with faux Cotswold stone

From the Chipping Campden Web Site ‘Chipping Campden is one of the loveliest small towns in the Cotswolds and a gilded masterpiece of limestone and craftmanship.The main street curves in a shallow arc lined with a succession of ancient houses each grafted to the next but each with its own distinctive embellishments.

As the name suggests (“Chipping” means market or market place from the old English “Ceping”). Chipping Campden was one of the most important of the medieval wool towns and famous throughout Europe.

This legacy of fame and prosperity is everything that give the town its character.

Chipping Campden’s church, St. James, at the north end of the town, is perhaps, the finest ‘wool’ church in the Cotswolds, with a magnificent 120ft (36 metre) tower and a very spacious interior.The church is famed for having one of the oldest altar tapestries (pre-reformation) and largest brass in England.

In 1970 the High Street and much of the rest of the town was officially designated a conservation area to preserve the ancient town for centuries to come. ’

Park Road, Chipping Campden, with St James church beyond.

The ugliest garage in the Cotswolds? Sheep Street, Chipping Campden

The farming industry needs to rely on Tourism to supplement its income

The Half Built Windrush Heights Hotel A40 Nr Burford - Gloucestershire Many years ago, before the M4 opened, this site was the location of one of the best truck stops in the country - The Windrush Café.

Unfortunately, the Windrush Cafe had to close as the trade dropped and it fell into disrepair, growing ever more tumbledown throughout the 1990s. With the new millennium looming the last tattered remains of the Windrush Café were cleared to make way for the foundations of what a sign proclaimed as Windrush Heights Hotel.

Around 2001 the landscape looked set to be replaced by a building more suited to the beautiful Cotswold setting of a key gateway to Gloucestershire. Hopes were shortlived when building work came to a halt in May 2005 with the L-shaped hotel looking just weeks from completion.

Four years on and the almost-roofed, part-windowed structure stands abandoned to the elements. The wire fencing surrounding the site has been breached and signs of vandalism include smashed windows, graffiti and scattered building blocks. The steel bonds round plastic-wrapped packages of building stone have rusted. A concrete mixer stands abandoned and a safety helmet sits as a relic of the builder’s presence.

Completed, it would be only the third hotel on the main A40 between Oxford and Cheltenham - joining the Inn For All Seasons a couple of miles east and the Puesdown Inn fiurther west at Compton Abdale, near Andoversford.

From The Winchcombe Website ‘The Anglo-Saxon Borough of Winchcombe Winchcombe is a small, unspoilt Cotswold town where you will still find Butchers, Bakers and Greengrocers.

It is an ideal base for walking in the Cotswolds being at the intersection of the Cotswold Way, the Gloucestershire Way, the Wardens Way, the Windrush Way, the Wychavon Way and the unofficial St Kenelm’s Way.’

St.Peter’s, Winchcombe Parish Church - Liz Hurley got married in Winchcombe and forgot to pay the vicar!

Storm clouds gather over the Winchcombe Outpatients Centre

Mitsubishi Shogun “Animal� outside cottages in Lower Slaughter. Many of the more picturesque houses in the Cotswolds are now owned by the better off from the city living an idealised country lifestyle. This is probably the closest they want to come to livestock.

Plastic Pig on an electric light - Glastonbury Abbey

Plastic Pigs on a porch in Upper Slaughter

Glastonbury’s early history is linked with it’s dominant landmark, the Tor, a nearby hill which rises up from the otherwise flat landscape of the Somerset Levels. On its summit is a tower, the mortal remains of the fourteenth century chapel of St. Michael, which gives the Tor a mysterious and gothic appearance. In the middle ages, dedications to the archangel Michael were usually for the purpose of protection or purification, which seems appropriate, since the top of Glastonbury Tor was traditionally believed to be the entrance to the Celtic underworld, Annwn.

Glastonbury Tor and Golf Buggy

Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset, situated 31 miles south of Bristol, with a population of approximately 10,000. Glastonbury is a rather different and lively small town and one that is steeped in history, myths and legends, and thereby giving rise to its popularity as a ‘new age’ destination.

Various myths include Glastonbury as the final resting place for King Arthur and the Holy Grail, and for such a small town there is much to see including the 7th century Glastonbury Abbey, Glastonbury Tor and the Chalice Well

The Morland factory site, formerly a tannery, where the famous Morland sheepskin jackets were once made. Also included in the development area is the former Baily’s leather goods factory, once producers of bearskin hats for the Brigade of Guards and of Mohammed Ali’s boxing gloves, among many other products.

This development site has been derelict for nearly 20 years. Regeneration has been marked by a series of failed plans, hampered by the severe pollution created by hundreds of years of tanning on waterlogged ground composed of peat mixed with alluvium, and complicated by the course of a medieval millstream running past both factories.

Since the closure of Morland’s and Baily’s, the Clark’s shoe factories in Street, two miles away, have also been closed and the jobs relocated to Portugal and then the Far East and the area is suffering from the highest unemployment rate in Somerset.

...and the beggars continue to entertain the passers by. This man plays his harmonica in time to the tune of the bells of Wells Cathedral.

Copyright 2009 Jeremy Stewardson