Some say the custom of choosing sweethearts on Valentine’s Day arose in court circles in the 14th century, allegedly because birds began mating on that date. Be that as it may, love is in the air this month, and around the Cotswolds National Landscape (CNL) there are plenty of romantic places where you can share it.
Art historian Kenneth Clark wrote in Landscape into Art that: ‘With the exception of love, there is perhaps nothing else by which people of all kinds are more united than by their pleasure in a good view.’
Why not combine both on a walk with someone special to escarpment locations like Coaley Peak for some exhilarating, pulse-quickening panoramas?
Also enjoy what Sir Simon Jenkins called: ‘Bath’s marriage of architecture and landscape’ in England’s 100 Best Views – admiring man and nature’s marital harmony by looking down on the World Heritage City from Bath Skyline Walk, or looking up from city streets to the wooded hills above. Maybe channel Jane Austen while you’re here and be ‘exquisitely happy’ following in the steps of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth in Persuasion who prove on their reunion in Bath that love wins through in the end.
A climb up Cotswold escarpment outliers – Brailes Hill, Cam Long Down, Dumbleton and Alderton Hills – is good for getting those feelgood endorphins flowing, though AE Housman’s setting of Bredon Hill for his eponymous poem on love and loss might tug on the heart strings.
Get back on track with some cosy arm-in-arm moments on a secluded valley walk, perhaps the wooded Bybrook Valley, a picturesque step from Castle Combe.
ROMANTIC MOVEMENTS
In the 12th century, King Henry II is said to have hidden his mistress ‘Fair Rosamund’ Clifford in a labyrinthine bower at his Woodstock manor, but his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine discovered the love-nest and, according to folklore, obliged Rosamund to choose death by dagger or poison; she chose the latter. Fact was kinder than fiction, however, because Rosamund retired to become a nun when her royal affair ended.
You can still see Rosamund’s Well in the park at Blenheim Palace at Woodstock, and the park is a wonderful place for winter wellbeing walks through ‘Capability’ Brown landscapes. Boost your heart rate (you want to keep it in good nick for all that loving) on the short uphill walk to the Column of Victory View; or discover ‘the finest view in England’ encompassing the Queen Pool, John Vanbrugh’s iconic Grand Bridge and the palace.
The inscription of Blenheim as a World Heritage Site notes: ‘the palace and its associated park have exerted great influence on the English Romantic movement...’
Quite so.
LOVE’S FOLLY
Many writers, artists and craftspeople have fallen in love with the Cotswolds, adding to its rich heritage, perhaps most famously ‘Father of Arts & Crafts’ William Morris. Together with Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti he leased Kelmscott Manor to serve as a summer retreat, describing the Oxfordshire hideaway as: ‘Heaven on Earth’. It was here that Morris’ wife Jane and Rossetti, to whom she was model and muse, pursued a romantic affair away from the constraints of society.
Members of the Arts & Crafts movement also used Broadway Tower as a country holiday retreat. According to William and Jane’s daughter May, it was ‘the most inconvenient and the most delightful place ever seen... the men had to bathe on the roof, when the wind didn’t blow the soap away... but how the clean aromatic wind blew the aches out of our tired bodies’.
Broadway Tower, originally envisioned by Capability Brown, was completed by James Wyatt in 1798 as an eclectically embellished ‘Saxon’ edifice intended as a love token from the 6th Earl of Coventry to his second wife, Lady Barbara. In an age when building and landscaping was pursued with an eye to picturesque views, such follies added a touch of romance, and the tower provided a venue for entertainment as well as many later activities. Get that loving feeling as you look out from the roof viewing platform and embrace vistas that on clear days span 16 counties.
WAXING LYRICAL
Numerous walks around the tower include the route into Broadway itself, the hub of a thriving late-19th-century artists’ colony and to this day boasting arts and antiques at its throbbing heart. Author Henry James declared Broadway and its surrounds: ‘The perfection of the old English rural tradition’, while William Morris thought Bibury: ‘The most beautiful village in England.’
More recently, in 2023, ‘Venice of the Cotswolds’ Bourton-on-the-Water was named by the Rough Guide as the UK’s most romantic spot, while Copsehill Road in Lower Slaughter, a picture of pretty cottages and stone bridges over the River Eye, was once voted the most romantic street in Britain. All charming places for a Valentine stroll.
Or take yourself off to Batsford Park, Astall and Swinbrook, haunts of Nancy Mitford who satirised her eccentric, upper-class childhood in The Pursuit of Love, while Tetbury (among other places) provided the filming backdrop to the immortal Jilly Cooper’s Rivals.
THE BIRDS AND TREES
Snowdrops – in the Victorian ‘language of flowers’, symbols of hope – offer welcome heart-leap moments in a sometimes dull February, and this Valentine’s Day Cotswold Voluntary Wardens are leading a Splendid Snowdrops walk as part of CNL60 anniversary celebrations of the Cotswolds’ designation as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Check details on the CNL website and join in a two-mile jaunt where snowdrops flourish along the Windrush Valley.
For other scenic snowdrop treats, wrap up warm and head for the likes of Batsford Arboretum, found near Moreton-in-Marsh, Painswick Rococo Garden or Newark Park at Ozleworth.
Meanwhile, Cotswold woodlands are alive with coded love messages. In the Victorian tradition of using flowers and plants to express feelings, ivy indicated fidelity or marriage, and perhaps a wander beneath the whispering boughs of beech woods – beech trees symbolised prosperity – could be just the place to nurture plans for a romantic future together.
As to birds, according to the art of ornithomancy, or avian soothsaying, the first bird that a single person sees on Valentine’s Day is a symbol of their life partner.
Blackbirds are associated with kindness, birds of prey with power, sparrows with work on the land, and swans with creativity. Spot a duck and your relationship will be homey and stable; a dove and your marriage will be happy. You might want to tilt the odds by choosing a walk by water, in woods or on hills depending on your hopes..
The Cotswolds National Landscape, formerly known as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, is looked after by the Cotswolds Conservation Board. For more information, visit cotswolds-nl.org.uk or email info@cotswolds-nl.org.uk
