On the Beaten Path: A Cotswolds Walking Tour near Birmingham
By DREW GOUGH / 14 July 2015
From back garden to back garden, through farms and fields, the footpaths connect some of England’s prettiest towns. The trails are more-or-less marked at gates and fences, with an arrow pointing off toward the next gate or fence, but generally you just follow the trodden grass or the packed dirt through beautiful countryside reminiscent of a Romantic ode. The U.K. is crisscrossed with a latticework of public walking paths that have existed for hundreds (sometimes thousands) of years, and then entered into the protection of the crown in the 19th century. To call the resulting paths quaint would be an understatement: the trail from Chadlington to Charlbury, part of our self-guided Cotswolds walking tour, begins in someone’s backyard, with a hand-painted sign saying “We have cats, so please keep your dogs on a lead.”