Winchcombe and Bellas Knap

A snowy day in mid-February is probably not the best time to explore the Cotswolds. However, S- was lecturing in Gloucester and I didn't fancy a day alone at home – even with Wales playing England in the Rugby Six Nations – so I searched the Internet for interesting places to explore and settled on Winchcombe.

Considering that it was the middle of winter and the thermometer was hovering around zero, the town was surprisingly busy with tourists, most of whom seemed to be heading for Sudeley Castle or trying to photograph Winchcombe's honey-stoned buildings. I had more important things on my mind — lunch!


A couple of pubs looked inviting, but one glance at the Light Bites menu outside this attractive half-timbered building settled it for me. This is the Wesley House Restaurant, where they serve smoked salmon and cream cheese on granary bread for £8. I added a glass of Savignon Blanc and settled into a soft settee near a blazing log fire to while away the best part of an hour.

It would be fun to come back here and dine in the restaurant, not least because Cornish mussels and scallops feature on the menu. Moreover, the cheese board looks amazing. Sadly, all I seem able to buy in my home town is 'standard supermarket' Brie, Camembert, Feta and a dozen varieties of Cheddar. O for a decent wine and cheese shop!  Or perhaps it's better for things to be as they are, as I learn to maintain my still new sleek figure.

My motivation for coming to Winchcombe was not, however, to sip fine wine and feast on salmon, pleasurable though this was. So surrendering my seat beside the flaming logs of Wesley House, I made tracks for Bellas Knap, a particularly fine example (declares the English Heritage website) of a Neolithic long barrow.  But how about this for a frosty welcome?

This really is a place to which I must return when the hills are not shrouded in mist, though I did manage to take a few interesting photos. At least 38 people were once buried here in the early Neolithic period (3700-3600 BC). Sadly, though, the site suffered badly from over-enthusiastic excavation by Victorian archaeologists, who left the place in ruins – just as they did the barrows around my hometown of Newquay. It fell to more sensitive folk to restore this barrow to something like its former glory in 1928.

Most of the stones from this chamber were removed in the 1860's. Despite the mist one does, however, get an impression of how very long this long barrow is.

Exploring this chamber was good fun. Notice the two standing stones at its entrance. I recall something similar (though on a grander scale) at West Kennet Long Barrow.

It was very cosy in here, even though there was nowhere to sit down. A good place, I concluded, to eat my apple before heading back to civilisation.