A Farm Tour and a Bit of Shopping

I love visiting farms/gardens/estates to see what they are doing and how they are set up.  It's always inspiring and I always come home with a new idea or two!  This past weekend, Gretchen and I journeyed to Christopher Spitzmiller's home for a garden tour through the Garden Conservancy open garden scheme.   

I have Christopher's book and love it, it's chock full of information and really well done in my opinion.  Christopher is a potter, most famous for his (eye wateringly expensive) gorgeous lamps.   His farm, Clove Brook Farm, is clearly a labor of love and is gorgeous at every turn.  Here are some photos of the farm...

After touring the farm, we headed to the darling town of Millbrook where we had lunch and did some shopping!  I haven't been shopping in a long time and it was so fun as it happened to be a festival day in town so there was extra excitement in the air!  A women's group was doing a fundraiser for the food pantry with high end previously owned clothing so I got Grace a classic camel hair skirt and myself a sweater, I found an all wool blanket with gorgeous colors and an ironstone platter perfect for vegetables from the garden.  All in all, a good day I would say!

A Trug Souviner

As I've written about many times, we often try to buy a piece of art on our trips, with our definition of art being pretty loose in that it just needs to be something of the region, that will stand the test of time and remind us of our trip.  In the past that has meant artwork to hang on the walls, sculpture (pottery and glass), antiques, a copper pot, sweaters and even a blanket.  I love that when I look around our home, I see reminders of wonderful time together and wonderful places.  Before we even embarked on our trip to England,  I knew that I really wanted to seek out a trug.

In my mind, trugs are synonymous with gardening in England.  Each trug is handmade in the time-honored tradition of steaming and molding the chestnut and willow into the different parts of the trug with copper pins being used to keep it all together.  Each trug is signed and stamped by the maker (at least the Royal Sussex ones are, I'm not sure about others).   I love the size of my trug, and I find that it's the one basket I've been reaching for more than the others.  It's small enough I can easily put cherry tomatoes in it without squishing them or a pile of beans without them getting all jumbled up with other harvests.  I love that this particular souvenir is specific to England, beautiful, useful and well made.  It checks off all my boxes!

The Cotswolds

 

The Cotswolds did not disappoint!  Everything about it feels to be quintessentiallly English.  The rolling hills, the woodlands, the thatched and slated roofs, and the stunning gardens all work together to create some special sort of magic.  It's charming, beautiful and feels like you've stepped a bit back in time.  Almost every building is built out of honey colored stone that is native to the area.  

We were thankful to have a car to move around the Cotswolds in  because it's a large area, or "Area of Astounding Natural Beauty" as it is designated in the UK!  The villages are spaced rather far apart and in order to get to some of the lesser visited ones, a car was essential for us.  

Our first stop was Stow-on-the-Wold.  Here we wandered around town, went in a few antique stores and visited St. Edward's Church.  Supposedly, the entrance to the church, with its 300 year old Yew trees was the inspiration for Tolkien's Doors of Durin, the west gate of Moria.  

Next, we went to Chipping Camden, which turned out to be our very favorite village!  It has a gently curving high street that is lovely.  

After leaving Chipping Camden, we made our way to Broadway but not before we went on a little ramble!  The miles and miles of public footpaths in the UK is extraordinary.  

The village of Broadway felt a little more commercial as it had more shopping but was still darling.

Our next day, after spending the morning in the kitchen gardens, we explored Burford where we went to the most amazing garden center.  Frankly, I've never seen anything like it.  It literally had everything and then some in regards to gardening.  Our next stop was the village of Bibury where we visited the iconic Arlington Row, the most photographed spot in England apparently!  This row of homes was converted to weavers cottages in the 17th century!  And, of course, there were swans!

From there we made a brief stop in Cirensestire before heading back to take a walk near our home base village.  It seems to us that the English take their walks very seriously!  This walk took us through villages, woodlands, open fields, by churches and even through what seemed to be residences yards!  It took us longer than expected because there were multiple times we we unsure we were actually on a walking path!

Our final day in the Cotswolds saw us in Bourton-on-the-Water.

From there we went to Upper and Lower Slaughter.  We parked in Upper Slaughter and walked the 20 minutes or so to Lower Slaughter.  These were really lovely, sleepy villages!

We then made our way to Daylesford Farms.  There, we had a really delicious lunch and wandered around the store.  They had absolutely beautiful meats, cheeses, produce!  I didn't love the home/garden part as much as I anticipated.  I found the Burford garden store to have more that I was interested in.  

I should mention that we had really good food while in the Cotswolds.  One evening we sort of stumbled across The Feathered Nest, which was essentially deserted, but my goodness was the food a delicious surprise.  Bryce and I had the Dover Sole, which was expertly presented table side, which was so, so good.  Our last evening we went to The Wild Rabbit which was a beautiful pub (owned by Daylesford Farms) and I loved how on theme they were.  The food here was probably the best of the whole trip!

It was a really wonderful trip, the first of its kind for Bryce and I without the children!  I'm already looking forward to our next visit (though the Lake District is high on the list!).  

Where We Stayed in the Cotswolds

I have followed Thyme for quite some time on Instagram and knew that when we visited the Cotswolds that was where I wanted to stay.  When I discovered they had a stay for 3 nights and get a 4th for no extra cost, I was thrilled because it was perfect for our planned stay.  I absolutely loved staying here!  It was charming, gracious, and beautiful.  

They describe themselves as a village within a village and that rings true.  The property is built around many old, stone buildings; barns, homes, outbuildings, you name it!  I absolutely adored our room, "Carrot."  It was decorated in the English style with a pattern that the owner herself had painted.  

The gardens were beautiful!  The main gardens were in front of the Ox Barn, where we had dinner one night and breakfast every morning, the pig barn where reception was located and the event space which was also a former barn.  There were also gardens throughout the property leading to other spaces such as the pool, the farmhouse, and the spa.

Our stay included breakfast every morning and we also had a delicious dinner there our first night.

At least one evening we had a drink in the Baa Bar!

For me, one of the highlights of our stay was our trip to visit the Kitchen and Cutting Gardens.  The Gardner spent about an hour and half with us chatting vegetables and seeds!  I loved it so much!

After a wonderful tutorial, I think we might finally understand how to prune our tomatoes!

As a side note, each morning at breakfast, we had "garden juice" that was carrot, apples and ginger.  I've never been a juice fan but ya'll this was so good, I might have to become one.