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The Cotswolds River Thames Explorer
Now you are going to think of course she’s going
to say that but this really is a super day out! We start
with morning refreshments in a hidden village at the
first pub on the Thames, follow the infant river to
the Saxon town of Cricklade, visit a splendid small
Cotswolds town to see the most important set of
mediaeval stained glass in the country and stop for
a two course lunch in an attractive old hotel in the
market square. We spend the afternoon in the old
inland port of Lechlade where the Thames began its
working life enjoying a little meander up to as close
to the source that a powered boat can navigate the
Thames in a replica of a traditional Edwardian
launch. Morning coffee with biscuits, a two course
lunch, donation to Fairford Church and the river
cruise is included and the trip is available from
Easter to the end of September every day except
Wednesdays and Sundays.
The guide will hop on your coach at Burford if you
come on the A40 or just off Junction 15 if you come
up the M4 and you’ll start with morning refreshments
included in the tour fee in the very first pub on the
infant River Thames which runs through the centre of
a hidden Cotswolds village. Over the centuries the
villagers were so used to flooding that they would
simply open their front and back doors and retire
upstairs while the Thames flowed straight through
their cottages - a much easier proposition in the days
before electricity and fitted carpets! The river rises
just a few miles away in the Cotswolds Hills and we
will follow it to the first town on the Thames.
Cricklade is a Saxon town built as a stronghold by
Alfred the Great who used the natural floodplain of
the Thames and it’s first tributary The Churn to help
defend the Kingdom of Wessex from the invading
Danes. The Manorial Court for the Hundred and
Borough of Cricklade, one of only a few remaining,
still looks after the common grazing of the North
Meadow where if you can come in the last two weeks
of April 2014 a very impressive show of the rare
snakeshead fritillaries is expected.
We are heading to the small and beautiful market
town of Fairford that stands on the Coln, the second
tributary to feed into the River Thames. Fairford is an
elegant, solid sort of place, beautifully kept and it
seems to confirm my suspicion that sometime over
the past ten years or so the middle classes in the
wealthier rural shires of England have got hold of a
job lot of that olive drab paint. The nationally
important stained glass windows of the wool church
here were designed in the middle ages to illustrate the
Bible story from Adam and Eve through to the Last
Judgement at a time when few could read or write
and they are quite a remarkable sight. In particular
there are some wonderful devils! William Morris who
lived nearby at Kelmscott often visited and it is clear
that the art of this church influenced him greatly.
We stay in Fairford for a two-course lunch at the old
Cotswolds coaching inn that fronts the market square.
Lunch today is a seasonal chicken lunch and a dessert
that you can choose on the day (included in price).
Your folk can pre-order a veg or gluten-free meal and
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