Where is the bloody Cotswolds

[Bottomplasters]

I always struggle to get my head around the Cotswolds. Everyone goes on about it.

Is it like the lakes? Is it really nice and where actually is it!

I’m north west and am always confused by this.

Anyone else get confused about stuff like this?!

No, it's sort of South West, around Gloucester.

No idea.
I'm geographically challenged, it just doesn't sink in.
I used to think there were two Cheshire much to my families amusement.

I get lost often but never fail to get home

It's alright, quite pretty, hills and stuff. Houses built in creamy gold stone. Jeremy Clarkson lives there. Posh people live there.

It's easy enough to find on a map tbh..

It is nice but nothing like the Lakes, much less dramatic, gentle hills, pretty towns and villages built from the local stone so distinctive in appearance.

I always think of it being on West Oxon / Gloucester border. Around Burford and the Chipping Norton sort of direction. It is very pretty. All creamy cottages and small towns/villages. Expensive to live there.

Is there any reason why you haven't looked on Google maps?

Pretty, rural area with chocolate box villages, lots of yellow stone. Very expensive to live there. Kind of in the Stratford-upon-avon, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire area. People visit to walk round expensive villages e.g. Broadway and eat overpriced meals or drink in very nice pubs. Nice countryside walks too.

I live in the Cotswolds (I'm not posh), between Cirencester and Cheltenham.

Very different from the lakes, more gentle rolling countryside and quaint, chocolate box villages.

It's a beautiful part of the country, but very overpriced in the tourist hotspots.

I live in the Cotswolds and despite being pretty it’s bloody boring. I’m a city girl really. I suppose the grass is always greener etc.
Lots of nice cars in supermarket car parks, lots of joules and boden, lots of old pubs, everyone has a dog.

Mumsnet is grumpy this morning. MN Talk would barely exist if everyone felt they couldn't post a thread on a topic that's Googleable.

In between Oxford, Gloucester and Bristol.

YANBU I did google maps it and I'm still not sure about it

Thats interesting Realitea why is it boring in your experience? as I think it’s lovely when I go on holiday there and it’s on my list to move when I retire, can you give any inside info on the realities of living there or have I just fallen in love with the romance of it all?

Parts of it are really lovely (I used to live in one of the more famous quaint Cotswold villages) but agree it’s quite dull to live there. And very insular. We moved to bristol after 18 months.

We often go there on a day out as DBro is in Worcestershire and it stretches up towards him too. Imagine a triangle from Bath up to Evesham, across to Stroud in the west and Kidlington (Oxfordshire) in the east.

We used to go to Bourton On The Water when we lived fairly close. It's sometimes called 'the Venice of the Cotswolds' but after several years of dragging visitors there, we started to refer to it as 'Boredom On The Water'

Its west oxfordshire, south gloucestershire bits or south worcestershire (tewkesbury/evesham

Market towns pretty little villiages seen as very midfle class not so much if you live here though its pretty normal if you live here

What @bizzledrizzle said. Mainly known in my head as having a crap road network and no supermarkets with big car parks and toilets, having done a few runs with the livestock trailer around and through it 😂 loads of Budgens and similar which is perhaps part of the charm but not ideal when you're hungry and in need of a wee after a long morning pulling a trailer.

Gloucester is not Cotswolds. Gloucester is a slum.

The Cotswolds is a very beautiful area - picture postcard villages, yellow stone houses, very genteel and very expensive. Area based around the Cotswold Hills covering Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire.

I’ll probably get shot down for this but I think of it as centre parcs writ large.

Loads of posh people in their posh cars saying how lovely and wholesome it is, let’s go for a lovely horse ride then down the local pub. Land rovers driven by non farmers (because it’s the COUNTRYSIDE don’t you know, daaaaarling).

I love Bourton on the Water-such a pretty place!

Draw a line roughly between Oxford, Redditch, Gloucester and Swindon. The Cotswolds are the low lying rolling hills that roughly sit in the area outlined by this shape, chatacterised by yellow limestone and the extremely pretty buildings and architecture this lends itself to. Old agricultural economy. Mixed farming. Pretty affluent. Cheltenham is an old Spa Town. Lots of tourism.

Hahaha. Redditch is not in the Cotswolds. Not nearly.

Little bit of South Warwickshire too, I think of Shipston on Stour as being the very northerly bit of the Cotswolds (it's where the houses start changing to stone rather than brick)