Day of frustrations

We left Stockbridge early and wasted half a day because we had to swap the car over due to the oil change light being on. We were not impressed that they had not serviced the car before we got it. Just as well we were fairly relaxed to start with today!
On the way to do this we made a detour however in search of the Uffington Horse which is The Uffington White Horse is a highly stylised prehistoric hill figure, 110 m long (374 feet), formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The figure is situated on the upper slopes of White Horse Hill. It is thought to be around 3- 4000 years old. We spent over an hour trying to get a good picture of it but it is so large it is impossible so I pinched one from the net.

The views from Uffington castle were quite spectacular

We had to negotiate this flock of sheep to get onto the path.

Right next to it was Dragon Hill where supposedly St George slew the dragon.

And then there is Uffington castle, another Iron Age fort. The day was just beautiful for a walk up the fort and around the hills. There were ripples in the side of the hills around the valley from the retreating permafrost in the last ice age.
We went on from here to Cirencester. This was the biggest Roman town after Londinium. There is not much to see on the ground but it has one of the best museums we have seen and so many Roman and later artefacts.
The Roman name for the town was Corinium, which is thought to have been associated with the ancient British Dobunni tribe.

We had our lunch of apples and nuts in this park

Very old cross outside of the church

The following are museum shots

Painswick was the next stop and this is where we stayed the night. No wonder they call it the jewell of the Cotswolds! It was late in the day and the buildings had this beautiful honey glow.

Finally found a door even I couldn't fit into without stooping.

Since 1648 the local children have run the bells of this church. The practice still continues and tonight was obviously their practice time and the bells rang out for a couple of hours. Sometimes a little discordantly but it still sounded impressive the bells also chimed each half hour during the night.

Painswick's history is interesting. It was built on the proceeds of the wool trade and many of the houses have been built with a south facing attic room which was used as a weaver's workshop. It has an 11th century parish church, St Mary's and this has a striking display of 99 yew trees that have been clipped into different shapes. Legend has it that the devil wont allow the 100th as that one always dies. During the civil war it was a Royalist town and the remains of the defence ramparts are still visible. The village still bears the battle scars of bullets and cannons on the walls.

The Falcon Inn where we are staying was built in 1592. Lot of people have slept in our room over this time.
We spent ages walking around town when we arrived but could only find one place to eat. It was bait expensive but comparable with home and the food was excellent.