The Village Standard takes its feeling from the Cotswolds: low hills, dry stone walls, slow rivers and stone that turns gold in the evening light. This is a short guide to the place that shapes the way we think about country life.
The landscape
The Cotswolds is a range of limestone hills that stretches across several counties, from Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire to Wiltshire, Somerset and Worcestershire. It is a designated National Landscape, formerly known as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and covers roughly 800 square miles of villages, valleys and farmland.
Wool and stone
The wealth of the Cotswolds was built on sheep. The long-woolled Cotswold breed, sometimes called the Cotswold Lion, grazed these hills for centuries, and the wool trade paid for the grand village churches and the merchants' houses that still stand. The local limestone gives every building its colour, and the dry stone walls that cross the hills are made from the same material.
On foot
The best way to see it is slowly. The Cotswold Way runs about 100 miles from Chipping Campden to Bath, and there are shorter walks from almost every village: along the River Eye between the Slaughters, over the water meadows at Bibury, up onto the edge at Painswick. Read A Weekend in the Cotswolds for a few places to start.
At home
A country house lives by a few simple habits: a boot room by the back door, a kettle that is always warm, a table big enough for everyone and lamps lit low in the evening. Everything we stock is chosen for that kind of life. Start with Kitchen & Dining, Living & Decor or Dogs & Country Walks.
Through the year
See The Country Calendar for a month by month note on what to do, cook and bring indoors.