The Picturesque Cotswolds

Golden stone rolls over roving, glistening fields, framed in white sprinkles of Queen Anne’s Lace. Castles and the quaintest of villages hosting open air markets, meadows, and miles upon miles of wildflowered fields, footpaths and the occasional fortress. Country homes at their most quintessential, gardens that have graced our landscape fantasies forever, and a wealth of inns and cafés and pubs that only appear like this in fairy tales. Fairy tales, and also in the Cotswolds.

Forever and ever, I’ve wanted to visit this impossibly picturesque portion of England. The Kingham Plough, eponymously named and just south of Chipping Norton, provided an introduction that bordered on the mythical. Six bedrooms, one little barn and a spectacular restaurant, the grounds, the gardens and the locally sourced everything, antiques to asparagus, made my eyes glaze with glorious delight. Beneath an oversized market umbrella seated at a rustic picnic table, sipping an elderflower spritz, I write this. How is it all real.

Matt and Katie Beamish brought their double decade of hospitality expertise to the Kingham Plough in 2019, and while I don’t know what presented before this point, let me share a little about what it’s like to stay in Bedroom 6. Behind a muted blue barn door, a super king bed frosted in Egyptian cotton and a duck down duvet float beneath a slanted skylit window, of which there are several. A freestanding clawfoot tub joins a double vanity basin, the locally sourced Bramley amenities are complimentary, the biscuits are homemade and full breakfast is included, and spectacular. I am smitten.

In the morning, a tiny milk bottle waits outside your door, should you want a splash, with your coffee.

The restaurant, with its 17^th century limestone walls and duo of blazing wood burners is warmth personified. The rustic bread boards and low-lit charm effuse the local welcome clearly intended by Katie and her design pedigree, and the cuisine itself clarify the time Matt spent working alongside Jamie Oliver. Exceptional. The slow food movement is at the forefront here, with soups being the casual stars (mopped up by Otis & Belle sourdough), mains to please even the pickiest pescetarian (that sesame seared tuna steak) and feel-good foods unceasing through dessert.

I love a land where history holds its space, and luxuries lace their way through. It’s travel nirvana. Globetrotting gourmands and antiquing aficionados will all dream sweetly at Kingham Plough. It is the crossroads of sanctuary and style, rustic chic and contemporary class, and JJ with the infectious charm. That dream you’ve had of English countryside living, lives here.

Continuing the Beamish dreamscape, restoration circa 2022, we next made our way to the 17^th century Crown Inn, Church Enstone, where the swaying blades of lanky grass, iconic Cotswold stone, and thatched A-line roof all but demand a garden frolic. Surrounding summer festivals, fetes, fairs, farms, parks, palaces and castles make this homestead a bit beyond belief, but alas, I can attest. It is as real as the stone it’s built on.

History tells us Church Enstone is also home to St. Kenelms’, a 12^th century church spoken of in the Canterbury Tales. The pub itself was originally built to accommodate the workers who restored the church in the 16^th century, with Charles I rumoured to be a guest, hence the name, The Crown.

The Great Tew room, one of five en suite accommodations, with its rustic beams, Rapture & Wright textiles and contrasting aqua tiled bathroom was a village vision unfurled. That enormously luxurious porcelain tub: I have swum in smaller swimming pools – rapturous. Out the window, Indian parasols peppering the garden with ponies and pens of sheep in the distance, is everything you’d envision while idealising a Cotswold hamlet. An afternoon Aperol cements it.

And the pub: on reclaimed timber floors (glorious) amongst old photos and vintage furnishings (my favorite) and a fireplace that translates ember into a feeling, upmarket gastro fare goes gloriously gourmand. While retaining the casual class of a local watering hole, the greenhouse ambiance sprinkled with Kilner jars, and a flagstone bar has me feasting on ambiance alone. But then.

While Head Chef Jason Christie was out, Chef Fred Batista assured we did not suffer. He treated us to a briny, beatific, journey (it serves as no surprise that Chef Christie was previously the head of ferments. How much do I love that there is such a thing… at Daylesford).  Throughout the meal, where the menu changes monthly, it becomes exceeding clear that to work here is to be equal parts artist and chef. The flavors they plate are not just wordly, they’re a tribute. To local food production, to biodiversity, to botany, to regional cuisine. This is a place to push your farm to fork boundaries. You will be rewarded for your adventuresome way.

Exhbiit A: the Cod skin scratching and whipped cod roe. What even is that? I ordered before I could answer. So smoky and savory, the roe so lemony, and that crunch. No more questions. The house malted sourdough with pink peppercorn and fennel butter – it is an absolute symphony.  A Crown Inn chef is a daily forager, a loyalist to his locals, and an internationally educated artist of the culinary elite. I mained with the Cornish Crab and leek tart, with the grilled radicchio, feather light, as was the homemade vanilla and cherry souffle, a tangy, edible cloud. Together with a bottle of Domaine de Jale, Côtes de Provence, want for nothing.

The Crown is a countryside retreat heralding heritage and hospitality. Wistful in all the best ways, with a world class inventiveness in the kitchen that rivals any revelatory restaurant of its kind, all you will leave hungry for, is imminent return.

Next stop, a scenic and sumptuous sojourn to Roots + Seeds Kitchen Garden in the heart of Cirencester Park. Beneath vaulted ceilings and giant windows, surrounded by edible florals and herb beds, this former foxhound kennel and stable is now a culinary playground of farm to fork fare, whereby the grounds alone, are an invitation.

Home grown produce picked each morning, alongside a selection of local suppliers, backbone the bounty of British dishes featuring French influence at Roots + Seeds. Their eco-conscious mission aims to merge community and environment, providing a delightful means of engaging with both. Best mates, passionate gardeners, and founders Toby Baggott and Sam Lawson-King are re-introducing the working kitchen garden with a quarter acre assemblance of flowers and fruits and vegetables and herbs, right outside, and rightfully inspiring. In every way metaphorical and literal, the Grow Your Own Movement is flourishing here. The energy here is organically electric.

Alongside a Lavender-Chilli Thyme Spritz (featuring housemade lavender syrup), I thoroughly enjoyed the edible rainbow that was my Kitchen Garden Superfood Salad (giant cous cous, pickled beets, summer squash, rainbow chard, mint, feta, crispy cos, I added some halloumi, all tossed in a lemony vinaigrette). The flavors are outrageously fresh (that mint!) and it’s no wonder why. The energy created by Sam, Toby and the gang is infectious and what they’ve created is more a community than dining experience alone. On August 2^nd their pizza arm opens, Cattivo. Look out.

And for dinner, we were treated to country pub nirvana at The Milton Hare. Delivered daily from the shoes of Devon and Cornwall, their seafood specials, from someone who lives next to the ocean, they blew my unruly hair back. A chalkboard full of daily offerings, inventive as they are an extension of an al fresco experience finessed, as I followed my Amalfi Spritz (for a hint of Italian summer in the English countryside) with line caught Cornish Cod over smoked salmon and garden pea risotto. We shared a side of tenderstem broccoli (British for broccolini) with herb butter and hazelnuts, he had the wild seabass over a mint and feta salad, lemon and thyme, flavors singing. Beneath the warmth of the late summer sun, sated, so goes another Cotswolds meal, remarkable in all the ways. How do they keep doing it.

To be a resident of the Cotswolds, if only temporarily, is to dance with an illusory language reserved for daydreams and fantasy. The saturation of charm is almost indigestible, behind barn doors and timeworn stone, a pictorial, pastoral, playground of rapture, where one can rummage sacred salvage and while away in corner cafés and pubs with more personality than perhaps legal, it all captured me something strong. And I think that might be travel alchemy at its finest. You never know when you will find a place that aligns so illusively with your most peaceful, most inspired internal place. It is a sensate jackpot we only know when we find it, or more often, it finds us.

Under a scone scented sky, roving country roads flanked by English roses born to perfume, winding the weathered wood fences, wild larkspur and lavender line the landscape beside the roaming sheep and horses, I swear, it is a music and a magic. The Cotswolds are a captivation, a reminder that some reveries are meant to live in imagination, while others, are insatiably, impossibly, heartachingly ours to have in the here, and for four sun dappled days in July, I had the magnificent privilege.

Fact Box:

We stayed at The Kingham Plough in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. Tel: +44 (0)1608 658327, email: book@thekinghamplough.co.uk and The Crown Inn, also in Chipping Norton. Tel: +44 (0)1608 677262, email: book@crowninnenstone.co.uk.

Rent a car so you can visit all the little villages – the country roads are scenic nirvana and the little towns are otherworldy. The left side driving is a harrowing adventure. You can handle it.

The pub restaurants at The Crown and The Kingham Plough are both extraordinary, and if you are captivated by authenticity in architecture and anthropology, you will be putty in the Cotswolds ever capable hands.

Author Bio:

Jolie Loeb is a Luxury Lifestyle columnist based in Los Angeles.

Photographs courtesy of The Crown and by Jolie Loeb