Burford

Burford calls itself the gateway to the Cotswolds, and the geography agrees with it. The High Street runs steeply downhill from the old market town to a medieval bridge over the River Windrush, lined the whole way with stone houses, antiquarian shops and tea rooms in buildings that have stood since the wool money came, somewhere between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Halfway down stands the Tolsey, the pillared toll house where the medieval market was reckoned, now a small museum.

The church of St John the Baptist holds a darker piece of the country's history. In May 1649, three hundred and forty mutinous soldiers of Cromwell's army, the Levellers, were locked in here, and three of their ringleaders were shot in the churchyard. One prisoner carved his name in the font, Anthony Sedley, and added the word Prisner. It is still there to read.

For all that, the daytime town is a gentle one, and a crowded one in season. The traffic comes down the hill for the shopfronts and the river view, and turns around at the bottom.

The country on either side of the valley is another matter. Lanes climb away from the Windrush into farmland that no coach turns into, past gateways with no names on them and houses that prefer it that way. Burford is the way in. Most of what it leads to is not on the High Street.