In England, according to my history podcasts and audiobooks, history is driven by geography.
In very crude terms Britain is divided into two sections. There is the low-lying, fertile and easy to farm south and east while around the fringes the terrain gets harder, more mountainous, and less productive. The northern hills, the Welsh Marches and in the far south-west, the rugged moors of Devon and Cornwall make up the tougher bit.
It has always been so that the southern and eastern parts of the country have been more productive and wealthy, while the Celtic Fringe, as it is sometimes known, has had a tougher time of it. All through history this has led to the richer parts of the country getting fought over and subject to raids from the poorer parts. This being especially true of the Scottish raiders known as the Border Reivers, who repeatedly came down into England and caused mayhem, right up to the Act of Union in 1707 when England and Scotland were merged into a single polity.
In the part of England where I come from, the north-west, there are still little towers, known as peel towers, to be seen on the hilltops, put there to warn of Scottish raiders on their way. The northern towns, like Kendal, were built with gated arches onto the streets having yards lined with houses behind, this being to make them more defensible. It also probably explains why there is so much red hair in my family, it wasn’t just the cattle they were after.
To my mind the nicest example of the opposite face of England, the softer south, is the Cotswolds. This area stretches (almost) from Cheltenham and Gloucester in the west to Oxford in the east and from Stratford on Avon in the north to Swindon in the south. It is known for lush, rolling countryside and pretty little chocolate box villages.
About 30 years ago I moved my family south for career reasons and settled in Abingdon, just off the eastern end of the Cotswolds. I don’t think we will ever go back north. We like it here.
My trip was to one of the villages near Bourton on the Water, right in the heart of the Cotswolds. It was only about 40 minutes from the Kingston Bagpuize warehouse so I was able to go into work and complete the previous day’s invoices and mailing labels before setting off.
This task has reverted to me now as our lovely Administrator, Justine, has left the team. We were very sorry to lose Justine after nearly five years with Little Wheels, but she has returned to her previous job which is closer to her home and has hours which she suit her better. I’m sure those of you who interacted with Justine by phone or email will miss her, as we all do, and wish her well.
Bourton on the Water is often combined with Moreton in Marsh to make a very pleasant day out, with usually a cream tea somewhere in the mix. When my late father used to come and stay with us and be taken there for the inevitable trips he always referred to the Cotswold villages collectively as ‘Much Binding in the Marsh’, I think this was a memory of something he used to listen to on the wireless back in World War 2.
It didn’t do to press him too much on what this was as one would get half an hour of him going on about how funny Richard Murdoch was. (He wasn’t)
Leaving Kingston heading north I passed through some lovely country, crossing the Thames by two very nice pubs, the Maybush and the Rose Revived. These sit at either end of a little bridge controlled by lights, as it is too small for two vehicles to pass. I think the Rose Revived is one of the places Raymond Blanc learned his craft. Either one is a good choice for lunch.
This road joins the A40 at Witney and I headed west. The first town you come to is Burford, pictured above. The A40 passes by the town centre, but if you turn right at the roundabout you find yourself in the steep main street leading down to the Windrush river at the bottom. The houses in the picture featured in an episode of Morse where someone was knocked off a ladder and killed.
Burford though has an even more grisly claim to fame. It was during the English Civil War in 1649. There was a mutiny in Cromwell’s army while they were stationed in the area. A group of the soldiers, who were Levellers, protested about their pay and the prospect of being sent over to Ireland to fight. Few who were sent there returned, it was a dangerous and unpopular posting. The soldiers took sanctuary in Burford church, which always seems to be a bad idea as it never works. The other side always ignore the rules of sanctuary and haul you out, as happened here.
In this case three of the protesters were selected to be made an example of and were shot against the church wall on the orders of Oliver Cromwell.
The picture is St Johns church in Burford.
The remaining soldiers were pardoned. Each year on the nearest weekend to the date of the Banbury mutiny it is commemorated locally as ‘Levellers Day’.
The A40 from Witney to Cheltenham is one of my favourite roads. It runs along the top of a ridge with gorgeous country falling away on each side of the road. On the day of my trip it was very cold. We are currently getting some Artic air apparently. The hedges and the verges were all white with frost and looking across the valleys they were filled with white mist. It was a stunningly beautiful and still day.
The river Windrush runs along the valley to the north of the A40 and there are a number of villages on the river which you can visit, one of my favourites is Minster Lovell.
Minster Lovell has two key attractions, the first is pictured above, the Old Swan pub. The menu is split into two sections, there is the ‘Pies’ section and the ‘Not Pies’ section. I am unaware of what is on the ‘Not Pies’ section. It is a lovely place to sit out in the garden on a warm sunny day and enjoy a really nice lunch, or at this time of year, sit indoors next to a big roaring fire with a glass of something warming and red.
About ten minutes dog walk away, at the other end of the pretty main street of thatched cottages, is the little road to the village church. Behind the church is a well hidden surprise. The ruins of a medieval manor house, Minster Lovell Hall.
These ruins sit in a crook of the Windrush in a wooded setting and are a great place for a picnic, if you are not already full of pie from the Old Swan that is.
There is inevitably a lot of history surrounding these ruins. The house was built around 1440 by William Lovell, it was abandoned in 1747 after which it was allowed to fall into ruin.
In 1483, when he had just seized the throne, King Richard III made a visit to the house. He had just done away with the Princes in the Tower and was looking to consolidate his hold on the crown. As part of this campaign he made a Royal Progress around the country and Minster Lovell was thought important enough to be included.
I’ve a sneaking sympathy for Richard III, yes, despite all the smoke and mirrors employed by his more fanatical supporters, I’m pretty sure that he did murder the Princes in the Tower, or had someone do it for him. However that was what you did back then, if you had a shaky hold on the throne you eliminated threats. Henry VIII was still doing it 60 years later when he executed Margaret Pole in the Tower in 1541 when she was aged 67, she was the last of the de la Pole family who had a slightly better claim to the throne than had Henry’s father, Henry VII.
If the princes had lived they would have remained a focus for rebellion. In addition, had he not moved against them and the Woodville clan (the family of his late brother Edward IVth’s wife) then it would have been him for the chop.
Up until then he had a reputation for being solidly loyal to Edward and a more than competent administrator of the north of the country, where he was well liked. I was once in Middleham, in the Yorkshire Dales, which had been Richard’s centre of operations when holding the north. There was a Richard III festival in progress featuring a play called ‘Shakespeare was a Hunchback’.
However, the ruins are in a beautiful spot and are well worth a visit.
My exit from the A40 was a little farther west, through Little Barrington. The road drops down towards the Windrush and you drive through this really nice little village.
There are two rows of cottages separated by a steep piece of village green and the place is pretty enough to be on any Cotswolds souvenir box of chocolates or jigsaw puzzle.
I carried on to Lloyd’s house through the white landscape and light mists on this very frosty day. I was to collect his late father’s model trucks.
I’m really pleased to have bought this set of trucks as it is a nice combination of the familiar Corgi & Oxford Diecast lorries and some unusual pieces like the two Shackletons in the picture above. In the end I bought just one of them as Lloyd wanted to hang on to the other in memory of his dad.
Shackletons are British made models of old Fodens from the 1950s. They are mostly diecast with some tinplate and they have clockwork motors. They also can be dis-assembled using nuts & bolts. They are very much sought after and these days are genuinely rare.
There were also Universal Hobbies tractors in 1:16 scale and some British Transport Classics, these are 1950s trucks, highly detailed and finely made in 1:50 scale.
The webstore is going to be interesting in the coming weeks as these go on sale.
With the model trucks safely in the back of the van I headed back to Kingston and was home before 11:00am, it’s nice to have a local journey for once.
I didn’t spot a single classic on this trip. It’s not that much of a surprise, most of them probably won’t even start on a morning this cold and I was not on the road for long.
There may be more classics to spot next week as I’m back in Rickmansworth for more 1:76 scale buses and carrying on to Eastbourne for another nice mixed collection featuring a lot of Vanguards.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s ramble, if you did please scroll to the bottom of the page and click the ‘Like’ button.
What’s in the Van? – Home
9th November – Southampton and a Visit From The Press
2nd November – All Around the Big Smoke
19th October – Stonnall & Bicester
4th/5th October – Berkhamstead & Poole
21st/22nd September – Stratford & Farnham
20th September – Duesenberg Coupe Simone
14th September – Croydon
10th September – New Romney
24th August – Shrewsbury
17th August – Airedale, Gainsborough & Leicester
3rd August – Bedford
27th July – Worthing
13th July – Chatteris, Hinckley & Nuneaton
6/7th July – Magor & Westbury
15/16th June – Newcastle upon Tyne
8th June – Bournemouth, Ringwood & Bracknell
1st June – Diss, Stewartby & Brackley
25th May – Rickmansworth
12th May – Kingston & Fleet
4th May – Witham
21st April – Staines
12th April – Dereham
6th April – Warminster
30th March – Doncaster, Gainsborough & Peterborough
18/22nd March – Bedford & Epsom
15/16th March 2023 – London, Hemel Hempstead & Stafford
8th March 2023 – Warwick & Solihull
5th March 2023 – Huntingdon & Bedford
23rd February 2023 – Little Wheels Museum
16th February 2023 – Devon & Dorset
9th February 2023 – Nottinghamshire & Lincolnshire
2nd February 2023 – Gloucester & Hereford
What's in the Van? 
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