Cotswold House Hotel And Spa

Michael Edwards visits Cotswold House Hotel and Spa in Chipping Camden, a quintessential Cotswolds town.

A walk along the golden Cotswold stone of Chipping Campden’s high street is a nostalgic step into yesteryear. This is a town that once grew rich on the lucrative wool trade. A town of timbered doorways, designed for ages when men over six feet tall were seen as giants. Fortunately, Chipping Campden has survived the tsunami of modernisation, of neon, of corporate branding. Its shops are occupied by antique dealers, artisans, unique cafes and tempting delis.

In medieval times, the name Chipping referred to the markets held there, and the open-sided covered market building still survives. Remove the cars and this is a slopping, slanting high street that could star in a film of a Thomas Hardy novel.

Looking down on this scene, the Cotswold House Hotel and Spa, is made up of three Regency houses. Classically proportioned columns frame the entrance to a reception, featuring a log fire, that then leads into an intimate 28-room hotel.

Rooms range from cosy tucked away in the eaves through to the grand Montrose Suite with its own private garden and large bathroom hosting both an oval free-standing bath and a walk-in shower. As there are eight different categories of rooms, before booking talk through your requirements with the hotel.

Six of those rooms are cottages in a surprisingly lengthy garden. Box and yew hedges create tempting secret gardens for summer drinks and afternoon teas. Finally, at the end of the gardens, by the hotel’s car park, the former stables have been given a new life as a spa. Featuring six treatment rooms, a hydrotherapy area with a heated hydrotherapy pool, and an aromatic steam room for use before and after treatments.

Extending the Regency theme, the Fig Restaurant is made up of two rooms, one with a rural-green-scene wallpaper rumoured to come in at a grand a roll, while another light room of columns and cornices looks out over the gardens.

In contrast, The Bistro on the Square has a more informal and more contemporary vibe. Though both restaurants share the same menu, which enables the restaurants to provide a good range of specials for starter, mains and dessert as well as the established favourites. While the regular menu may offer tandoori cauliflower, duck, pheasant, steak, and trout the choice is broadened by specials such as cote de boeuf, lamb, sea bream and prawn linguine.

Even the cutlery on the tables and the silver stands for afternoon tea, both made by local craftsman Robert Welch, represent an intimate part of Chipping Campden’s arts and crafts heritage. At the end of the 19th century, CR Ashbee led a movement of artisans rebelling against the low-quality, mass-produced items manufactured in Victorian factories. Then, in 1902, he moved his Guild of Crafts from London’s East End to rural Chipping Campden. In the words of one of the displays at Court Barn Museum, which tells the story of the artisans, it was “Eastenders meets The Archers.” Charging higher prices to the newcomers, the locals were not impressed.

Lack of demand and lack of business nous from Ashbee, led to the closure of the Guild, though many artisans remained in Chipping Campden. Today some of their descendants, and many other artisans, display their work at the Old Silk Mill on Sheep Street. Wander around the three storeys of the mill to watch crafts folk at work and buy their art, jewellery, pottery and weaving in The Gallery.

Depending on a walker’s perspective, the 103-mile Cotswold Way begins or ends in Chipping Campden. The path wends its way through a drystone-wall-lined patchwork of sheep-nibbled pastures. If this long-distance trail is too much, there are plenty of shorter walks around the town.

If guests are still seeking more entertainment, the hotel displays a poster suggesting “25 things to do within 25 minutes of Cotswold House Hotel”, emphasising the hotel’s superb location.