For more than 6,000 years, humans have interacted with the Cotswolds landscape, each generation leaving its mark. The area boasts a wealth of archaeological sites, historic buildings, and landscapes.The Cotswolds also provides the setting for two world heritage sites: Blenheim Palace to the east and the city of Bath in the west. Exciting evidence of long occupation by people can still be found across the Cotswolds.
Ancient settlements
Neolithic long barrows – such as Hetty Pegler’s Tump near Uley and Belas Knap south of Winchcombe, Bronze Age round barrows and Iron Age hill forts along the scarp, were important markers of territory. They were built raised high up, reflecting the symbolic power of the dramatic scenery.
Stone circles, such as the Rollright Stones near Chipping Norton, and other stone monuments, remind us of earlier inhabitants’ belief systems.
A landscape farmed for generations
Ancient field systems and terraces, and fine examples of ridge and furrow, attest the working lives of people over long periods of the past. This is still a living and working landscape. Farming has always had an impact on the quality of the landscape. Today, over 80% of the Cotswolds is agricultural land. In recent decades there have been changes in farming patterns and in the crops that are grown. However, throughout the Cotswolds, there are large tracts of countryside which retain their traditional character.
Romans thrived in the Cotswolds
Roman engineers carved out the magnificent Ermin Way, linking Gloucester to Cirencester and the Fosse Way, from Bath to Stow-on-the-Wold and Moreton-in-Marsh. These routes allowed fast movement between great towns, vast rural estates, and villas.
A medieval heyday
In the late Middle Ages the prosperity generated by the wool trade went into bricks and mortar and has left the Cotswolds with many magnificent churches, manor houses and market towns, including Painswick, Northleach, Chipping Campden, Marshfield and Chipping Norton. Perhaps the most enduring symbol of the wealth that the wool trade generated is the wool churches that are located across the Cotswolds. Northleach church is a particularly fine example of the Perpendicular style. The distinctive appearance of many villages and towns in the Cotswolds is the result of a style created by craftsmen using local stone.
The textile industry
During the 17th and 18th centuries the cloth industry influenced the area around Dursley, Chalford and Painswick. Old cloth mills which sprang up during that time can still be seen, particularly along the rivers and streams in the Stroud area and in the surrounding valleys.
Distinctive dry stone walls
One of the most distinctive features of the Cotswolds is its dry stone walls. There are more than 6,000km of walls – almost the length of the best preserved section of the Great Wall of China. Much of what is seen today is from the 18th and 19th centuries, when large areas of open fields and downland were enclosed, but there have been dry stone walls in the area since Neolithic times.