Miranda Cox: The Cotswolds--A Traveler’s Fantasy vs. Reality
“This is terrible!!”
“This place is nothing like we expected!”
“And we paid so much to get here…”
The wind, blustery and absolutely miserable, sliced through the damp air around us and tussled our hair. I tugged my black hat down over my ears and pulled up my gloves. Just like our spirits, the sky above was a dreary gray as we stepped off the train in Moreton-in-Marsh. On that train our expectations for the Cotswolds were high. One of my most outgoing friends, Brooke, had helped to plan out our trip to the beautiful and iconic Cotswolds.
It seemed as if there couldn’t have been a more perfect destination. The Cotswolds offered a storybook setting: the cutest tutor-style cottages side-by-side all following a small twisting street, complete with a stone bridge arching over a small glistening creek. Green vines grew up the stony sides of some of the cottages, while others were adorned with the quaintest flower pots, signs, and lanterns. Could such a stereotypically English place really exist? Picture after picture on Google convinced us that the Cotswolds would be our next location. One particular village in the area modeled the iconic Cotswolds style. Whether or not we would witness such a fairy-tale setting and walk among the streets of the Cotswolds model village was no question –we would make it happen. After all, since the Almighty Google hadn’t let us down before, the place had to be real, right?
Well, not exactly.
Our search for the Cotswolds model village didn’t begin quite as planned. The only marvel our first location, Moreton-in-Marsh, our self-made gateway into the Cotwolds, offered was a large clock in the town’s center. Otherwise, the buildings were less than magnificent. They were, in the grey and bleary sky, downright miserable and un-appeasing. The buildings were made of large brown and tan bricks, but they were not the cottages we desired. Mostly made up of antique shops and other small businesses, Moreton-in-Marsh did not spark our interest at all. Even the public restrooms mocked us, requiring that we pay in order to use them. Tempers and frustration rose. In order to escape the disappointment around us, we fled into the Yellow Brick Café where we contemplated our next move. Would we simply wait out the entire day here in this town until the next train back to Winchester came, or were we missing something? Megan and I thought we should search for an answer to the great flaw in our trip-planning research: What exactly are the Cotswolds, and where is this model village?
“It’s an entire area, I’m afraid. There’s a lot to do and see.” An older gentleman in a shop across the street looked at Megan and I with a pitiful gaze. He found a tourist map in his shop and, with his finger, outlined an area that made our jaws drop. As it turns out, the Cotswolds are composed of an area about the size of Rhode Island and it would take a good month to properly see the entire area. “That is, of course, if you have a car,” he added. He must have noticed our faces fall.
“We just want to find this model village,” I said with a small bit of hope as I picked up a postcard that displayed the Cotswolds village that we were looking for.
The man nodded, “That’s just down the A429.” I picked up another postcard of a church entryway and tree merging and presented it to the man. “Ah!” He smiled crookedly. “You should see that. Go to Stow-in-the-Wold. There should be a bus leaving in about… 10 minutes.” And, there it was, our next location. Gathering ourselves, we decided to give this town a try as we hurried to the bus station to figure out which bus to board.
“Adventure, right?” I had said with a half-smile.
So, we adapted our trip just like that. Simple. Why these people had towns with such long and strange names, though, we weren’t sure.
Stow-in-the-Wold, as it turns out, was not our Cotswolds model village either. The four of us got off the bus and once again felt the blow of disappointment. Stow-in-the-Wold was only a tiny bit cuter than Moreton-in-Marsh. Again, there were antique shops. This time, however, we decided to give one a go. There was nothing impressive in the antique shop, unless one planned on spending a few hundred pounds on an old clock. After leaving the shop, we found the two trees whose trunks were merging with the front entryway of an old church called St. Edwards. It was beautiful, but as I gazed upon the wood and stone of the entry way, I wasn’t satisfied. Where were the golden hues and deep greens promised in the image on the postcard? I thought the trees would be bigger! Where was the awe I was supposed to feel…? I was starting to wonder if chasing Google images and postcard pictures was a foolish task. After all, Photoshop is a powerful business tool. In the end, after embarking on a small adventure to the countryside on foot by the means of a busy highway, we gave up on Stow-in-the-Wold. We had one more town to hope for: Bourton-on-the-Water. Would this town have our fairytale Cotswolds village promised by that shop owner?
As we disembarked the bus for the final time, Bourton-on-the-Water instantly made us smile. No, we were not standing before our fairytale village, but it was close. There were some cottages! There were old trees bending over a large creek that lazily flowed throughout the town. Stone bridges arched over the creek, ducks begged for crumbs, and the town even had a small mill. This was so much closer to what we were expecting out of the Cotswolds. Surely our fairytale village was hiding somewhere among the many streets? It wasn’t long before we came upon a glorious sign that read: To The Model Village (arrow points left). We all squealed.
FINALLY.
This was what we had been waiting for!
We hurried down the street towards the sign.
This is what all our hardship had led us to!
We turned left at the sign onto another street. We rounded the corner, absolutely giddy with excitement.
This was it…
…and we stopped before a building that looked a lot like an entry way to a warehouse. A large sign was on the building. We all stood in silence for a moment, unsure of whether or not we could understand the truth on the sign before us. The sign immediately informed us that we had found the Cotswolds model village. However, there were a few problems. First, it was closed on Saturdays. Lo, it just happened to be Saturday. Second, it cost £3.60 to see the village. Third… well, the model village was just that –a model village. Technically it was a 1/9 scale replica of the heart of the Cotswolds village Bourton-on-the-Water.
You can guess what happened next: plenty of cursing and plenty of hysterical laughter. Google had fooled us just as it probably does all the time. We were devastated by finding out that the village we had searched so hard for was actually just a replica. However, what had just happened to us was actually quite humorous: we had been totally fooled by our own expectations. Our adventure demonstrations how Google can skew expectations into fantasies of fairytale villages. Until now, it didn’t occur to me that we walked through the actual town the replica was inspired by. Take away the disappointment, and I actually stood beside the water’s edge and walked upon the arched bridges… it may not have been in the bright sunshine, but I was there.
So, no. We did not find our one fantastical Cotswolds village –we found so much more than that. During that trip, we successfully organized our own bus rides, we solved the problem of how to pay everyone’s bus fair, we sought out adventure at every turn, and we discovered three Cotswolds villages in one day. Sure, we felt as though we had failed. But what we –I – actually gained from this trip was worth so much more: the skill of flexibility and humor.
“This place is nothing like we expected!”
“And we paid so much to get here…”
The wind, blustery and absolutely miserable, sliced through the damp air around us and tussled our hair. I tugged my black hat down over my ears and pulled up my gloves. Just like our spirits, the sky above was a dreary gray as we stepped off the train in Moreton-in-Marsh. On that train our expectations for the Cotswolds were high. One of my most outgoing friends, Brooke, had helped to plan out our trip to the beautiful and iconic Cotswolds.
 |
| An iconic Cotswold Village (image source) |
Well, not exactly.
 |
| Street view of Moreton-in-Marsh |
“It’s an entire area, I’m afraid. There’s a lot to do and see.” An older gentleman in a shop across the street looked at Megan and I with a pitiful gaze. He found a tourist map in his shop and, with his finger, outlined an area that made our jaws drop. As it turns out, the Cotswolds are composed of an area about the size of Rhode Island and it would take a good month to properly see the entire area. “That is, of course, if you have a car,” he added. He must have noticed our faces fall.
“We just want to find this model village,” I said with a small bit of hope as I picked up a postcard that displayed the Cotswolds village that we were looking for.
The man nodded, “That’s just down the A429.” I picked up another postcard of a church entryway and tree merging and presented it to the man. “Ah!” He smiled crookedly. “You should see that. Go to Stow-in-the-Wold. There should be a bus leaving in about… 10 minutes.” And, there it was, our next location. Gathering ourselves, we decided to give this town a try as we hurried to the bus station to figure out which bus to board.
“Adventure, right?” I had said with a half-smile.
So, we adapted our trip just like that. Simple. Why these people had towns with such long and strange names, though, we weren’t sure.
Stow-in-the-Wold, as it turns out, was not our Cotswolds model village either. The four of us got off the bus and once again felt the blow of disappointment. Stow-in-the-Wold was only a tiny bit cuter than Moreton-in-Marsh. Again, there were antique shops. This time, however, we decided to give one a go. There was nothing impressive in the antique shop, unless one planned on spending a few hundred pounds on an old clock. After leaving the shop, we found the two trees whose trunks were merging with the front entryway of an old church called St. Edwards. It was beautiful, but as I gazed upon the wood and stone of the entry way, I wasn’t satisfied. Where were the golden hues and deep greens promised in the image on the postcard? I thought the trees would be bigger! Where was the awe I was supposed to feel…? I was starting to wonder if chasing Google images and postcard pictures was a foolish task. After all, Photoshop is a powerful business tool. In the end, after embarking on a small adventure to the countryside on foot by the means of a busy highway, we gave up on Stow-in-the-Wold. We had one more town to hope for: Bourton-on-the-Water. Would this town have our fairytale Cotswolds village promised by that shop owner?
As we disembarked the bus for the final time, Bourton-on-the-Water instantly made us smile. No, we were not standing before our fairytale village, but it was close. There were some cottages! There were old trees bending over a large creek that lazily flowed throughout the town. Stone bridges arched over the creek, ducks begged for crumbs, and the town even had a small mill. This was so much closer to what we were expecting out of the Cotswolds. Surely our fairytale village was hiding somewhere among the many streets? It wasn’t long before we came upon a glorious sign that read: To The Model Village (arrow points left). We all squealed.
FINALLY.
This was what we had been waiting for!
We hurried down the street towards the sign.
This is what all our hardship had led us to!
We turned left at the sign onto another street. We rounded the corner, absolutely giddy with excitement.
This was it…
…and we stopped before a building that looked a lot like an entry way to a warehouse. A large sign was on the building. We all stood in silence for a moment, unsure of whether or not we could understand the truth on the sign before us. The sign immediately informed us that we had found the Cotswolds model village. However, there were a few problems. First, it was closed on Saturdays. Lo, it just happened to be Saturday. Second, it cost £3.60 to see the village. Third… well, the model village was just that –a model village. Technically it was a 1/9 scale replica of the heart of the Cotswolds village Bourton-on-the-Water.
 |
| The inspiration behind the model: Bourton-on-the-Water |
So, no. We did not find our one fantastical Cotswolds village –we found so much more than that. During that trip, we successfully organized our own bus rides, we solved the problem of how to pay everyone’s bus fair, we sought out adventure at every turn, and we discovered three Cotswolds villages in one day. Sure, we felt as though we had failed. But what we –I – actually gained from this trip was worth so much more: the skill of flexibility and humor.
Miranda Cox is an Honors Elementary Education major at
Lander University and will graduate in the spring of 2017. She studied abroad
at the University of Winchester during the spring of 2015 where she had the
opportunity to travel across the United Kingdom while also taking a variety of
courses at the university itself. As an aspiring teacher, Miranda is excited at
the prospect of returning to her hometown of Lexington, SC, after graduation to
teach her own classroom of students.