Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 22, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba Banff lift tickets of per any International Sun ski travel 885 6427 saturday free press travel february Section Paul Pihi Chyn 6977311 email c1 visitors leave a Parish Church in the cotswolds which has Miles of gentle cotswold Way slices through Over years of British history by John Flinn san Francisco examiner England Paul Cory led us out his Back turned and fancy having a look at the old House on the do you this might have seemed an Odd thing to considering that the House we were leaving the new House was a thatched roof cottage built in the 14th but after three Days of ambling along the cotswold Way through this enchanting Swath of eng i was growing used to Cory escorted us through his backyard to the Edge of a squared off and we stared Down into it As he pointed out an excavated set of living spacious an elaborate Central plumbing system and a Pagan alter the sprawling ruins of a once grand roman i was digging a Hole for a Fence and i pulled up a shovel Ful of mosaic Cory an archaeologist who lives Down the Road got together some of his Stu and weve been digging it up Ever a Little backyard shed holds the items Treyve unearthed Glass a Gold several urns possibly used to transport Olive Oil from the the Skele ton of a legionnaires pet a dog dish and some petrified dog sections of missing Walls correspond to the stonework in Corys new leading him to believe that whoever built the thatched roof cottage 600 years ago had recycled parts of the crumbling roman Corys backyard archaeological site int marked on any and no sign identifies it from the its just one of the serendipitous discoveries one stumbles upon while walking through the the path we were the cotswold winds about 165 Kilometres from Chipping Camden to meander ing Down treeline country through the backyards of lavish country along the Banks of Millstream and Over hillsides with sweeping views of not Odis Tant Best of it connects some of the most beguiling villages in All of England storybook Little towns such As Stan Painswick and with Square towered Norman churches and stately georgian Homes of butterscotch coloured cotswold these gently undulating Hills about 145 Kilometres West of London nurture the England of our imaginations and Arche the England of neatly trimmed sheep filled thatched roof cottages and afternoon Tea with freshly baked scones and clotted extending for about 90 Kilometres across with fingers reaching into Wiltshire and the cotswolds Are perfect country for the Hills Are old and Crest ing barely feet above sea and youre rarely More than an hour or two Bibury below is typical of the adorable villages visitors will discover when walking along the cotswold Way destinations Mew York capital of love c2 from a welcoming pub or Bedan break the British Are simply mad about walk and Treyve crisscrossed their country Side with England and Wales encompassing an area roughly the size of maintain More than Miles of footpaths and walkers rights of Scotland has thousands but is not required to keep planning a walk ing trip is simplicity any tourist information Centre can Supply you with a set of ordnance Survey a list of and an armful of guidebooks detail ing the most delightful local then its merely a matter of waking up each asking yourself How far and in which direction you feel like walking that Day and phoning ahead to a to Reserve a soft bed and a hot using that my and i walked the Northern two thirds of the cotswold Way a few years reaching before running out of last fall we returned to finish the this time starting at the Southern Ter minus in Bath and walking North to truth be once you leave the Southern Section of the cotswold Way int quite As fetching As the where the villages Are so adorable you just want to Pinch their but those Northern towns Are occasionally overrun with while the villages and working farms farther South remain blissfully linking together footpaths in constant use since celtic the cotswold Way slices through More than years of British so densely packed is this part of England with historic Sites and diversions that it seems impossible to walk More than 100 paces without stumbling into something one morning we left our in old Sod Bury and almost immediately passed an exclusive private school where shrieking eighty Earold boys in Blue blazers and striped ties were kicking a soccer Ball around the Muddy playing i were the Young masters of the lavish country Manors wed passed the sort of places Bertie Wooster and jeeves were always tooling off to for the weekend in the a few Steps further we found ourselves walking along the earthen ramparts of an 11acre Iron age fort in All Likely celtic tribes used to try to fend off the invading the Footpath led us past the Little Sod Bury Manor House in William tyndale began his lifes work of translating ancient latin texts into tyndale went on to translate the a revolution Ary act that demystified angered the Church establishment and ultimately Cost tyndale his British common Law permits walkers a right Otway across most private and we spent the morning edging past skit Tish flocks of the descendants of the Woolrich cotswold Lions that built the Region into a Middle age economic Twenty years after the domesday census of sheep outnumbered people in the Region by four to and their Wool was widely considered the finest in the riches they brought built the stately Manor lavishly decorated abbeys and picturesque Stone villages of the by late morning it was raining after was Britain so we hunched up the hoods of our rain parkas and skipped a Short Detour to another Iron age we did pause for a minute to gape at the curiously italia style Horton a House begun in less than 80 years after the normans the main part of the House had been built in 1521 by William the Bishop of whom Henry Viii sent off to Rome to try to per Suade the Pope to annul his marriage to Katherine of Knight but he returned to England with a deep fascination with italian architecture which explains his Homes Loggia covered walk ways and Renaissance around noon the Village of Hawkesbury Upton appeared out of the and we ducked thankfully into the Beaufort arms this was everything a British pub should be warm and with a Barkeep who didst mind our dripping rain jackets and patrons who immediately included us in their dried and we Shoul dered our packs and headed Back out into the the cotswold Way dropped Down into the idyllic Wilcott where we passed the remains of the cloth Mills that proliferated in the 17th and 18th Cen turning the fleece of the cotswold Lions into fortunes for their through the Trees we caught glimpses of the ornate Homes these fortunes at a aptly called the thatched cot owner Paul Cory and his wife were waiting to help us out of our dripping they stuffed newspapers into our waterlogged shoes and placed them near the we headed upstairs for a hot wed covered just nine Miles since leaving old but id absorbed More than i had in a College semester of British and we haunt even seen the old House on the property second Day of include rebate Blackjack Motch Tey travel voucher Tor Casino Rajna food voucher from the elephant cattle travel voucher with miners travel total value ;