After our stay at the Ragged Cot in Minchampton, we decided to take a wander around Tetbury. Tetbury is a market town famous for being the home of HRH The Prince of Wales and the Highgrove estate, situated just outside Tetbury. There’s a fab shop selling Highgrove produce and merchandise on Tetbury high street. Like many towns in the Cotwolds, Tetbury made its fortunes in the wool trade and the iconic market house was built in 1655.
Its cobbled streets are also filled with well-to-do independent boutiques (even now I can’t remember seeing a chain store) from women’s fashion, florists, cosmetics and home furnishings. The local butcher was cooking up a storm and the smell of cooked bacon wafted across the market square. We particularly liked both ‘Twig’, a conceptual florist and ‘Domestic Science’ and three-floor hipster department store – both were fun to browse, but attend with a full wallet!
We’d originally intended to head to Westonbirt Arboretum which is really not far from Tetbury, but the weather was just crap. So instead we headed to Cirencester in a bid to dodge the rain. I studied Classical Civilisation as an A Level when I went to school in Stratford upon Avon and we’d visited the Corinium Museum in Cirencester a number of times. But it was nice to go with Tom rather than a gaggle of school kids.
The Corinium Museum charts Cirencester’s local history from its foundations by the Romans right up to present day. Now that is a lot of history to cram in and there’s a lot of reading to do, if you want to really use Cirencester as your Mastermind subject! But what is impressive are the number of Roman mosaics that have been lifted from around the area and preserved, many were set to be fatally destroyed. It’s definitely a great place to take the family, especially at just £5 entry!
Just around the corner is ‘He Says, She Waffles’ – a tongue in cheek waffle house. We decided to round up our 24 hours with more eating (it was NOT a good weekend for Slimming World!) We enjoyed two fluffy apple and cinnamon waffles as we reminisced about where we’d eaten the best waffles. It was amusing to view their interesting waffle paraphernalia including a box of ‘Obama Waffles’ and a pair of uniquely, hand decorated converse trainers with glittery waffles. And with that, fully stuffed, we could eat no more, and we headed home to start a serious detox.
