The Cotswolds—an idyllic patchwork of rolling hills and honeyed stone that has captivated Romans, Normans, and now Instagrammers alike. But beneath the picturesque veneer lies a long history of obsession, commodification, and a creeping loss of community. In this piece, Liberty Nimmo unpacks how this rural escape became the latest casualty of our endless desire to own and idealise.

The Cotswolds, It Is Quite Pretty

15/10/24

by Liberty Nimmo

Personally, I’d like to blame the Romans who began this so-called fetishisation of the Cotswolds.  It was they who built the infamous straight-as-a-dart Fosse Way, which carves its way through the landscape, the villas at Chedworth, Great Witcombe, and, of course, the fort at Corinium, now better known as Cirencester.  They brought the sheep, too.  We know they didn’t like the rain, but I wonder if it was the vantage point offered by the Cotswold escarpment that sealed the deal?  Perhaps Carol Bamford felt the same when establishing Daylesford HQ.

The Normans then followed (copycats, I hear you say) and enchanting gems like St George’s church in Hampnett added colour and vibrancy to the mix.  Then, as the wool industry boomed right the way from about the mid 1300’s - mid 1800’s, the great edifices emerged; the Church of St Peter and St Paul at Northleach, St John the Baptist at Burford, St Peter’s at Winchcombe, the towns of Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Camden, the industrious hub of flax and wool manufacturing in the Stroud valleys and the canals stretching down to Gloucester docks.

As the wool industry declined the Cotswolds became baron; the hard limestone brash meant that farming and crop production struggled to thrive. That bitterly cold wind, owing in part to the height of the escarpment (which rises to over 1,000ft on Cleeve Hill) and lack of productivity, meant that for some time, the fetishisation as we know it today was halted and the Cotswolds represented a harsh landscape, quite unsuited to the equivalent of the late 19th and early 20th Century Soho House model.  Instead, in the 1950’s entire villages were sold off for barely more than a ha’penny (sigh).

The renaissance and fetishisation of the Cotswolds in true perhaps began with the Arts and Crafts movement in the 19th Century and the likes of William Morris at Kelmscott and houses like Hille House near Painswick and Rodmarton.  Then, moving into the late 1990’s and early 2000s it’s difficult to pin down a single catalysing factor.  Of course, we can point fingers at boring things like access to the M40, M4 and proximity to London, or the less boring things like Daylesford, Soho House, David Beckham, Jeremy Clarkson and, fill in the gaps.  Maybe, our fetishisation of this landscape is instead an inherited one, from our Norman and Roman ancestors?  And yet, I suspect it is also because these lands are a very lovely and pretty place to live, especially in amongst the millennia of interesting things to look at. 

As someone who decamped from London 6 years ago, I was predominantly drawn to the Cotswolds in hot pursuit of my passion for Regenerative farming, rather than the calibre of the oat-milk Flat White.  This was an added, albeit unnecessary bonus.  It would be all too easy to get on my high horse and ride down Banbury high street Lady Godiva-esque berating the weekend DFL’s and those pulled in by green salad bars and the saunas they turn to after the mandatory selfie at Broadway Tower.  I can’t help but think this would be a foolish approach to take; the Cotswolds are a lovely place to live and it’s easy to understand why the collective We has been drawn to visit and live here and it’s therefore inevitable that the Flat White has followed.

My only gripe with it all, if I may, is that the Cotswold escarpment still contains a wide variety of social and economic backgrounds and the hot pursuit of property ownership has had a really damaging effect on local villages, particularly with the buying up of properties to be rented as holiday homes. House prices have rocketed, forcing many locals to flee the escarpment altogether and the increase in holiday homes have left entire villages without a light on and therefore without any sense of heart or community.  Personally, part of my search for the rural idyll has been to live within and be a functioning part of local community but the property market has made this problematic.  I have friends who can’t afford to rent, friends with holiday homes sitting empty and I know many a farmer whose main source of income comes from renting their holiday let(s) rather than farming.  We do need to ask if it’s right that people can’t afford somewhere to live because of the housing market. Is it also right that farmers must depend on the holiday rental market rather than farming?  And what does it really mean for Community if the bottom end is being squeezed out, leaving only either the very old or the very rich in place?  This, seems to be the shadow side of our fetishisation.

Our need to possess and own these lands recalled to mind the Roman poet Lucretius who described one of the principal enemies of human happiness as being attributed to ‘inordinate desire – the fantasy of attaining something that exceeds what the finite mortal world allows…’  As I type, with flat white in hand, I wonder if our infinite desire to own it all is in part to blame for this millennia long obsession with the Cotswolds.  The Romans, Normans, Arts and Crafts movement and even the sheep all had their go.  I suppose it’s now our time to do the same. I only hope we can have the foresight to see what lurks within the shadow and that we can draw up the reins before it affects our happiness too.