Are the Cotswolds overrated and what are your UK hidden gems?

[beardedirislover]

Is it me or are the Cotwolds a bit overrated.

Theyre too twe, too stylised, too much black estate fencing that's perfectly painted. It's like disney version of countryside.

Where are your hidden gems in the UK not the normal tourist hotspots?

Yep, they don't really do it for me. Although to be fair it's not the villages themselves, which I do find pretty, but the crowds of visitors gawping at them.

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Shropshire is a beautiful county and Malvern area of Worcestershire.

The Cotswolds is a huge area, so I always judge anyone who says they don't like it as a broad brush as they are usually talking about the edge closest to Oxford and Soho Farmhouse

I agree, I find it quite twee and very samey. Pretty though for the first couple of villages. Northumberland is the most underrated part of the UK imo. Suffolk has pretty villages though and the south coast from Dorset to Cornwall is stunning, though hardly undiscovered

The Cotswolds are lovely but you can only look at pretty for so long.
We love Norfolk and Suffolk.

My favourite county is Sussex where I live. It’s very beautiful and diverse. Full of gorgeous countryside, ancient woodland and is very historic. Lots of lovely seaside towns as well.

Twee? They didn’t build all the villages and market towns for tourists you know. It’s just what they’re like.

I really liked Hereford and Pembrokeshire. Two very different places we saw on the same holiday!

I live in the south Cotswolds (aka the “real” Cotswolds) and it’s absolutely glorious. But we were in Broadway yesterday and I was commenting to DH that it feels like a theme park. Or maybe the Truman Show! It’s too perfect and it doesn’t feel like there is any real life happening there. All of the famous Cotswold towns in the Oxfordshire area are like that. Gloucestershire has much more beautiful scenery too.

You can find beautiful areas substantially devoid of tourists in most counties. What are you hoping to achieve from this post?

My touristy city was rammed with tourists and (especially) language student groups this afternoon, but we know where to go to find quiet spots.

Personally I find it quite helpful for tourists to be on a well-trodden path and sigh whenever a popular blogger points them to my routes.

I certainly wasn't trying to sleight the cotswolds, for some what I wrote above is the drawer and I do love how tidy they are, pleasant, genuinely picturequesque.

I just wanted to know other more hidden spots with that flavour. I have had gorgeous may walks in bibury for example with no tourists and cow parsley frothing in the verges, bliss. I just think other areas (Around Oundle, Stamford for example where I am from) to be beautiful too and wanted to know of other people's hidden gems.

We are blessed in the UK that nearly every county, as you say, has this, I just want to know them.

I hear Clun is rated as the most peaceful place, anyone been?

Dunster in Somerset is my hidden gem. There’s a castle, steam trains, a ford kids can paddle in, a wonderful playground and an activity trail, a rather scruffy beach, many many tea shops, beautiful ancient buildings , and some fantastic restaurants and pubs.

and Butlins in Minehead a few minutes away does day entry tickets , though I’m not sure that’s a plus

Stamford is nice (going there tomorrow) but south Lincolnshire very flat, so the countryside isn’t that spectacular.

I’m from Hereford originally, the countryside is stunning and you are never more than 10 minutes’ walk from it, wherever you are in the city. It is surrounded by beautiful hills and mountains.

Cotswolds are nice, I live nearby, but they’re not breathtaking.

I love Stamford.

I mean to the north it is flat and east, but Rutland and Northants (do recommend driving through the welland valley) are sooo hilly.

To me the Gloucestershire Cotswolds is the real Cotswolds. It's pretty but has a little grit in its oyster too. I like it better in winter when there are less tourists.

I don't want to say where my real hidden gems are because I want them to stay hidden.

I grew up in the Cotswolds (born there 1974). It was a fabulous place. Only Bourton on the Water was a tourist trap (and actively catered for it even then).

The rot started to set in when houses started being snapped up for second homes. Prices shot through the roof and born and bred locals were priced out. Now there are places which are almost entirely incomers, wealthy retirees, second home owners and shed loads of holiday rentals. Most of the proper shops have been replaced by ones appealing to tourists.

The rot really set in when Instagram and influencers became a thing.

Some of the very smallest villages have mostly managed to escape that and don't get the tourists to the great extent that others do. On the rare occasions I return I knew precisely where to stay away from and where is still beautiful and quiet.

I agree. I have to go there for work and I find it a bit weird. I also prefer being by the sea - Dorset's Jurassic Coast is beautiful.

As for hidden gems away from the Cotswolds, I'm keeping them to myself in the hope they remain as they are, gloriously untouristy.

Me too and I think it’s an overlooked gem. The South Downs, pretty rural villages and the coast.

The Cotswolds are very pretty (I lived nearby in the 90s so went often) but like many places is overfull of tourists these days. All the usual suspects are the same, the hidden treasures are the places that tourists don't know about. Go somewhere unfashionable that is cheap to visit and find out what's good to see, you may be surpised. E.g. I live in the NE, you could stay at Middleton Lodge and have dinner at the Michelin starred restaurant, visit Raby Castle and admire the walled gardens, have a tour of and see a play at the historic Georgian theatre in Richmond, go to the Bowes Museum (inspired by a French châteaux) in Barnard Castle or the Spanish Art Gallery and the community theatre show of Kynren in Bishop Auckland, see the World Heritage sites in Durham or at Fountains Abbey. But who ever thinks 'I'll go on holiday to County Durham'? Most other counties will have special places that are worth visiting that only the locals know about.

@FruAashild I completely agree with the head NE suggestions.

We had a fab holiday last year, basing ourselves in a Landmark Trust place on the Gibside estate (so near Newcastle), before heading up to the Scottish Border (Crabtree and Crabtree have some fabulous cottages). So much so that we are off to a National Trust apartment at Fountains Abbey this summer (which we'll combine with moving student DD to new accommodation at Leeds Uni).

We also had a lovely week pootling around Aberdeenshire a couple of Easters ago (hardly any tourists and we had great weather). The roads were pretty much deserted.

I don’t know about hidden gems, the places I like to go tend to be quite well known I suppose but at the right time and place are very quiet. Probably my favourite place in the planet is White Horse Hill in Oxfordshire and walking along the Ridgway from there. It’s globally famous as these things go but there are still plenty of times that it’s deserted.

Agree that parts of the Cotswolds now feel very ‘theme park’ - not the fault of the locals or the villages themselves of course. FWIW there are still a few hotels that are incredible but slightly under the radar as they actively avoid engaging with the influencer crowd.
We had a glorious few days away in East Sussex a couple of years ago, helped by great weather but that is my hidden gem. My local area is beautiful too but not really a tourist destination unless it’s hikers!

In general I’d say that an awful lot of places are hidden gems at 9am. Getting up early is a hack, as the youngsters say.

Also developing an interest in historic churches helps. There is hardly a place in the UK that doesn’t have something worth seeing in the parish church. The trouble is that you wouldn’t drive hundreds of miles to look at a graveyard that’s been particularly well-managed for wildflowers, a parish church that was very unusually built in the 1650s, a font with some characteristic wood carving etc. But stopping off and developing an educated eye is worth it.