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Buscot And Coleshill Estates

Coleshill

The Buscot and Coleshill Estates near Swindon in Oxfordshire seem to hark back to a pre industrial rural society, and are described as "traditional agricultural estates." But the reality is rather more complicated. Before the enclosures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, English countryside was organised very differently to today. Farmers owned a selection of scattered strips of land, and villages provided a convenient central base. The only area of land left in Britain using this system is around the village of Rhossili in Wales. After enclosure strips of land were merged into farms, of the type surrounding Coleshill and Buscot. Those who still had land moved into buildings on their new farms. The villages were left to the landless labourers, and many disappeared. By the nineteenth century, however, villages were being idealised as the symbol of a lost simplicity. Rich landowners took to creating their own fashionable estate villages with satisfyingly uniform architecture. Coleshill was one of those villages, remodelled in the mid nineteenth century by the Earl of Radnor. The village has the feeling of antiquity, but actually very few buildings predate the remodelling. The pub, a former smithy, the vicarage and the twelfth century church are among the few exceptions. Now owned by the National Trust, the village remains idealised. Coleshill and Buscot are less a view of the past, and more a commemoration of a romantic nineteenth century view of the countryside, which still has resonance today. At Strattenborough Castle, a short distance south of Coleshill a mock castle frontage was built in 1792, as part of a romantic landscape in newly conceived naturalistic parklands. The villages are beautiful, a beauty which is more a relatively modern creation than a rescuing of the past. They are no less worth visiting for that. In fact these estates are fascinating in what they reveal about modern preconceptions of the past and the natural world.

Circular walks around the estates are described in leaflets available in the village shops and tea rooms, and from the estate office in Coleshill. Guided walks are also organised. These tours take visitors around the fields, woods and farms of the surrounding countryside. They also visit other places of interest such as Strattenborough Castle and the Iron Age fort at Badbury Clump. Refreshments are provided at teashops in both Buscot and Coleshill, and at the Radnor Arms in Coleshill.

Directions: Come off the M4 at junction 15, onto the A419 towards Swindon. Then turn right onto the B4019 which takes you through Highworth to Coleshill. A minor road links Coleshill to Buscot. Parking is available in the villages, and at Badbury Clump, just east of Coleshill. Click here for an interactive map centred on Coleshill.

Opening Times: The estate is open all year. Opening times for pubs and tearooms vary.

Access: Paths in the estate may be uneven. They can also be wet and muddy after rain. There are unmodified toilets at the estate office in Coleshill, and at the tearooms.

Contact:

web site: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-buscot_coleshill.htm

telephone: Coleshill Estate Office 01793 762209