Bourton on the Water

A short trip to the Caravan Club site at Bourton on the Water was a welcome break.

The site is hardstanding or grass pitches, with or without EHU. There’s no toilet/shower block, but there is a motor home service point. It’s a quiet site, a few miles outside of Bourton. Apparently there is a bus service into the village, but we elected to take the motorhome into the village. There’s a good car park near the Co-op store with a designated area for motorhomes. We were told that you can stay overnight in the motorhome if you wish for £15 a night, which didn’t seem too bad.

Bourton is pretty and looked really nice with the flags for the jubilee. A few hours, an ice cream and a visit to the car museum and you’re done. As we didn’t have children we didn’t go to the model village or the bird sanctuary. Back to the site for a nice walk and dinner in the motorhome.

We decided to go to Sudeley Castle on our way home and I was pleased that Tim was driving along the narrow country lanes. It was well worth the slightly nerve wracking trip to get there!

We’d booked online and ordered a guide book. A delightful lady told us that we weren’t allowed to look at the guidebook whilst we were walking round as we’d be too busy reading and would miss all there was to see. We’re pleased we took her advice and thoroughly enjoyed wandering through the gardens. We really enjoyed the Sculpture Trail where we encountered iconic life-size animal sculptures made from flowers, grasses and plants, from all corners of the world as we explored the castle grounds.  The gardens are lovely and we were lucky to see the church being decorated for a wedding.

I particularly liked the collection of pheasants and peacocks, one of which obligingly spread his tail feathers for me to photograph.

I hadn’t realised that Katherine Parr is buried in Sudeley. She’s the only queen to be buried on private land. After she survived Henry VIII she married her lover Thomas Seymour and they lived at Sudeley. Sadly she died days after giving birth and Thomas didn’t bother waiting for the funeral before he went back to London in search of power and the pursuit of Elizabeth 1. It seemed that he didn’t really love Katherine at all, he was just power hungry. What a sad end to her life! She is entombed in the church on the estate.

There are some really interesting exhibitions and it’s well worth getting the guide book to read at home, as you can’t really take it all in. I’d certainly recommend a visit.

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