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Cotswold Motoring Museum & Toy Collection – Overflowing with vintage car collections, classic
cars and motorcycles, caravans, original enamel signs and a collection of motoring curiosities.
Dragonfly Maze – which comprises a yew maze with a pavilion at the centre. The object is not only
to reach the pavilion, but to gather clues as one navigates the maze. Correctly interpreting these
clues when one reaches the pavilion allows access to the maze’s final secret.
There are also a number of walks in and around the area. Click here for details. . .
The Rollright Stones is an ancient site which consists of three main elements, The Kings Men
stone circle, the King Stone, and the Whispering Knights.The name “Rollright” is believed to derive
from “Hrolla-landriht”, the land of Hrolla. It’s worth the short trip. Unlike places like Stonehenge,
here you can walk among the stones in the footsteps of people from thousands of years ago.
Chastleton House A rare gem of a Jacobean country house, Chastleton House was built between
1607 and 1612 by a prosperous wool merchant as an impressive statement of wealth and power.
Owned by the same increasingly impoverished family until 1991, the house remained essentially
unchanged for nearly 400 years as the interiors and contents gradually succumbed to the ravages
of time. With virtually no intrusion from the 21st century, this fascinating place exudes an informal
and timeless atmosphere in a gloriously unspoilt setting. There’s no shop or tea-room, so you can
truly believe you have stepped back in time.
Blenheim Palace. Palatial baroque-style mansion built between 1705-1722 by Sir John Vanbrugh
and given by Queen Anne to to the Duke of Marlborough for his defeat of Louis XIV. It has
remained the private home of the Marlborough Family ever since. It has a 2000-acres park with
terraced water gardens laid our by landscape designer Capability Brown. Sir Winston Churchill,
the British wartime leader, was born here in 1874.
Stratford On Avon
Apart from its historic association with William Shakespeare – though born there he didn’t actually
live there but spent his time in London – the town is worth visiting for two reasons. The Royal
Shakespeare Theatre where you can enjoy the bard’s plays performed by this famous theatrical
company, and the quaint Tudor buildings such as Shakespeare’s Birthplace, Hall’s Croft (home to
William’s daughter), Nash’s House and New Place (the last chapter in his life), Anne Hathaway’s
cottage (a romantic setting) and Mary Arden’s Farm (the childhood home of Shakespeare’s
mother).
However, it is much more than that, a market town with more than 800 years of history containing
not only many buildings that survive today and would have been familiar to Shakespeare, but also
a thriving community offering a wide variety of leisure and shopping experiences.
Shakespeare’s Birthplace The half-timbered house where William Shakespeare was born in 1564
is Stratford’s most cherished historic place. It is the most frequently visited of all the tourist places.
Descendants of the dramatist lived there until the nineteenth century, and it has been a place of
pilgrimage for over 250 years. It’s also the place where the bard spent the first five years of
married life with Anne Hathaway.
New Place/Nash’s House New Place, Shakespeare’s home from 1597 until his death in 1616, was
pulled down in the eighteenth century but its foundations and grounds can be seen, including a
beautiful Elizabethan-style knott garden. The site is approached through Nash’s House adjoining,
which contains exceptional furnishings of Shakespeare’s period. The rooms on the lower level
include some early seventeenth century oak furniture. Upstairs, there is an exhibition dealing with
the history of Stratford-upon-Avon before and after Shakespeare.